A charnel house is a
vault
Vault may refer to:
* Jumping, the act of propelling oneself upwards
Architecture
* Vault (architecture), an arched form above an enclosed space
* Bank vault, a reinforced room or compartment where valuables are stored
* Burial vault (enclosure ...
or building where human skeletal remains are stored. They are often built near
churches for depositing bones that are unearthed while digging
grave
A grave is a location where a dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as grave ...
s. The term can also be used more generally as a description of a place filled with
death
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
and destruction.
The term is borrowed from
Middle French
Middle French (french: moyen français) is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from the 14th to the 16th century. It is a period of transition during which:
* the French language became clearly distinguished from t ...
''charnel'', from
Late Latin
Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in t ...
''carnāle'' ("graveyard"), from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''carnālis'' ("of the flesh").
Africa, Europe, and Asia
In countries where ground suitable for burial was scarce, corpses would be interred for approximately five years following death, thereby allowing decomposition to occur. After this, the remains would be exhumed and moved to an
ossuary
An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the ...
or charnel house, thereby allowing the original burial place to be reused. In modern times, the use of charnel houses is a characteristic of cultures living in rocky or arid places, such as the
Cyclades
The Cyclades (; el, Κυκλάδες, ) are an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The nam ...
archipelago and other Greek islands in the
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi (Greek language, Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish language, Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It ...
.
Monastery of the Transfiguration (Saint Catherine's), Mount Sinai
Saint Catherine's Monastery
Saint Catherine's Monastery ( ar, دير القدّيسة كاترين; grc-gre, Μονὴ τῆς Ἁγίας Αἰκατερίνης), officially the Sacred Autonomous Royal Monastery of Saint Katherine of the Holy and God-Trodden Mount Sinai, ...
in the
Sinai
Sinai commonly refers to:
* Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Mount Sinai, a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Biblical Mount Sinai, the site in the Bible where Moses received the Law of God
Sinai may also refer to:
* Sinai, South Dakota, a place ...
is famous for having a working charnel house. Saint Catherine's was founded by
Justinian
Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...
in the early 6th century, on the site of an older monastery founded about 313 AD and named for
Helena of Constantinople
Flavia Julia Helena ''Augusta'' (also known as Saint Helena and Helena of Constantinople, ; grc-gre, Ἑλένη, ''Helénē''; AD 246/248– c. 330) was an '' Augusta'' and Empress of the Roman Empire and mother of Emperor Constantine th ...
. The monastery comprises the whole
Autonomous Church of Sinai, under the
Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The site lies at the foot of
Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai ( he , הר סיני ''Har Sinai''; Aramaic: ܛܘܪܐ ܕܣܝܢܝ ''Ṭūrāʾ Dsyny''), traditionally known as Jabal Musa ( ar, جَبَل مُوسَىٰ, translation: Mount Moses), is a mountain on the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. It is ...
where Jews, Christians, and Moslems believe
Moses
Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu (Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pro ...
received the
Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments (Biblical Hebrew עשרת הדברים \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, ''aséret ha-dvarím'', lit. The Decalogue, The Ten Words, cf. Mishnaic Hebrew עשרת הדיברות \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְ ...
.
Since the Sinai is an inhospitable place, the brethren of St. Catherine's have struggled to eke out a subsistence-level existence. The difficulty in establishing a large cemetery in the rocky ground notwithstanding, relics are also gathered for temporal and spiritual reasons: a reminder to the monks of their impending death and fate in the hereafter. The Archbishop of Saint Catherine's is commonly the
Abbot
Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The fem ...
as well. After death, he is afforded the dignity of a special niche within the "Skull-House".
North America
A charnel house is also a structure commonly seen in some
Native American societies of the Eastern United States. Major examples are the
Hopewell culture
The Hopewell tradition, also called the Hopewell culture and Hopewellian exchange, describes a network of precontact Native American cultures that flourished in settlements along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from ...
s and
Mississippian cultures. These houses were used specifically for
mortuary
A morgue or mortuary (in a hospital or elsewhere) is a place used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification (ID), removal for autopsy, respectful burial, cremation or other methods of disposal. In modern times, corpses have cu ...
services and, although they required many more resources to build and maintain than a
crypt
A crypt (from Latin ''crypta'' "vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, sarcophagi, or religious relics.
Originally, crypts were typically found below the main apse of a chur ...
, they were widely used. They offered privacy and shelter as well as enough workspace for mortuary proceedings. These proceedings included
cremation
Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a Cadaver, dead body through Combustion, burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India ...
(in the included crematorium) as well as defleshing of the body before the cremation. Once the houses had served their purpose, they were burned to the ground and covered by earth, creating a sort of burial
mound
A mound is a heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rocks, or debris. Most commonly, mounds are earthen formations such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. A mound may be any rounded area of topographically higher el ...
. Anthropologist
William F. Romain in ''Mysteries of the Hopewell'' notes that these charnel houses were built in the form of a square, and their diagonals could be aligned to the direction of maximum and minimum moon-sets both north and south.
England
Charnel houses do not appear to have been common in England. The earliest reference found to a charnel house was in the parish of
St Mary-at-Hill
St Mary-at-Hill is an Anglican parish church in the Ward of Billingsgate, City of London. It is situated on Lovat Lane, a cobbled street off Eastcheap.
It was founded in the 12th century as "St. Mary de Hull" or "St. Mary de la Hulle". It was se ...
in London, during the sixteenth century. Few other charnel houses are attested in the seventeenth century, usually within overcrowded urban contexts.
[cf. ]N.J.G. Pounds
Norman John Greville Pounds (23 February 1912 – 24 March 2006) was an English geographer and historian. He wrote over 30 books, primarily on the history and geography of Europe from several different time periods.
Early life and career
P ...
''A History of the English Parish''
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 423,
See also
*
Mortuary house
In archaeology and anthropology a mortuary house is any purpose-built structure, often resembling a normal dwelling in many ways, in which a dead body is buried.
Proper treatment and placing of the dead has always been of great concern to people a ...
*
Ossuary
An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the ...
References
Sources
* Papaioannou, Evangelos (1980) ''The Monastery of St. Catherine, Sinai'', St. Catherine's Monastery: Guidebook, 48 pp., Cairo: Isis Press.
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Charnel House
Burial monuments and structures
Native American religion