Catacombs and Crypts

Seventeen members of the local royal family are interred in this Baroque church in northern Germany.

The burial place of an obscure North African saint was turned into a macabre body preservation factory for the 17th-century Neapolitan elite.

Deceased nuns were placed on stone chairs to decompose, while the surviving nuns prayed near the lifeless bodies.

The menacing creature had a tremendous influence on the local culture before being exposed as a hoax.

The elaborate crypt where Peruvian heroes of the War of the Pacific were laid to rest.

Ruins battered by centuries of war and disaster offer a wondrous glimpse of medieval Ireland.

Legend says these stone structures are where the doomed citizens of a vanished village sent themselves to die.

A little marble compass above George Washington's (empty) tomb in the Capitol marks where D.C.'s four quadrants intersect.

Franciscan monks created a facsimile of the Holy Land for North Americans who couldn’t afford the trip overseas.

Under a church hides a forgotten 13th-century ossuary containing the remains of around 2,500 people.

Naturally preserved bodies are eerily staged throughout the crypt in varying poses.

Overshadowed by other, more famous Maltese catacombs, this ancient burial chamber has one of the best examples of a ritual agape table.

This unique crypt designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for his longtime friend was not completed in either man's lifetime.

The skulls and bones of thousands of soldiers line the walls of this small Italian chapel.

Eight naturally mummified bodies in glass coffins are housed in an underground crypt.

These lesser-known Maltese catacombs date back over 1,700 years.

The crypts are so large they're basically their own underground church.

The construction of a tram line unveiled hidden remnants of the old medieval city.