Capela de Ossos y A Igreja do Carmo

The Capela de Ossos (Chapel of Bones) is a small single room chapel in the rear of A Igreja do Carmo (The Church of Caramel or Church of Our Lady Mount Caramel) in Faro, Portugal. The story, as I understand it, is that the churchyard was the only open land available when the modern A Igreja do Carmo was built. The problem was that the land was also the grave sites to the monks who had served the adjacent monastery. The solution was the excavate the corpses and make a monument with the bones. 


Click the images to view full size.

Outside the Igreja do Carmo

The interior, like all Spanish and Portuguese Catholic churches 
we visited, was heavily gilded and highly ornate. 

Look closely and you can see the recesses that once held the monks' skulls
 and bones which didn't survive 200 years of weather exposure.

Jessica standing in the entrance to the Capela de Ossos

Some of the grave sites that remained.