443 Items Tagged

Catacombs and Crypts

Skulls in the hypogeum.

Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco

The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead still cares for the skulls at this mini-Fontanelle.

Catacombs at Templo Expiatorio

A neo-Gothic temple in central Mexico featuring a labyrinthine network of crypts.

Dargavs village in North Ossetia.

All Places in the Atlas on One Map

The definitive map of the world’s extraordinary sights.

Henry Croft.

London, England

Gravestone of Henry Croft

A statue of the original Pearly King is hidden in a church's crypt.

A historical marker at the cemetery explains that the graves are laid out in a traditional east-west orientation.

Sturrock Cemetery

A 19th century family buried their dead among the pines, beneath gravestones styled after ancient Scottish cairns.

Paintings on the walls

The Crypt of the Original Sin

A cave in southern Italy adorned with thousand-year-old Biblical frescoes existed in obscurity until fairly recently.

The altar of the church

Solferino, Italy

The Ossuary at San Pietro

The bones of some 7,000 soldiers killed in the historic Battle of Solferino are stored here.

Some of the skulls beneath St. Stephan's.

Leuk, Switzerland

Leuk Charnel House

For centuries no one knew there were hundreds of bones and precious artwork hidden beneath this Swiss church.

Exterior, arches

San Thome Basilica

This Gothic-style church is reputedly built atop the remains of one of Jesus's apostles.

Dancers from Carte Blanche Performance set the night aglow from a cemetery hilltop.

Take a Peek at the Haunting Sounds and Sights of an After-Dark Cemetery Party

A glimpse at Atlas Obscura's annual soiree at Green-Wood cemetery.

Megan Roberts November 17, 2016

Path leading up to the Pyramid

Rapa Pyramid

A peculiar family mausoleum built by a German nobleman captivated by the occult.

Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte

At the crypt of St. Mary of Eulogies and the Dead you are left alone to ponder mortality among piles of skulls.

Exeter, Rhode Island

Grave of Mercy Brown

The final resting place of New England's last "vampire."

Nazca culture mummies and skulls cemetry in Peru

Chauchilla Cemetery

Plundered and left asunder by grave robbers, this ancient necropolis has been painstakingly pieced back together.

Dargavs

Dargavs, Russia

Dargavs Village

This ancient village and its adjoining cemetery have a beautiful history of death and remembrance.

Lazzaretto Nuovo

Lazzaretto Nuovo

The plague quarantine island home to the alleged "Vampire of Venice."

Melník Chapel of Bones

Melnik, Czechia

Melník Chapel of Bones

Underneath this small church are 15,000 bones, arranged by an obsessive academic.

Marie Laveau's tomb in 2005

New Orleans, Louisiana

Marie Laveau's Tomb

The final resting place of New Orleans' most famous voodoo priestess.