Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Hallstatt's Catholic church overlooks the town from above. The lovely church has twin al-
tars. The one on the left was made by town artists in 1897. The one on the right is more his-
toric—dedicated in 1515 to Mary, who's flanked by St. Barbara (on right, patron of miners)
and St. Catherine (on left, patron of foresters—a lot of wood was needed to fortify the many
miles of tunnels, and to boil the brine to distill the salt).
Behind the church, in the well-tended graveyard, is the 12th-century Chapel of St. Mi-
chael (even older than the church). Its bone chapel—or charnel house
(Beinhaus)
—contains
more than 600 painted skulls. Each skull has been lovingly named, dated, and decorated
(skulls with dark, thick garlands are oldest—18th century; those with flowers are more re-
cent—19th century). Space was so limited in this cemetery that bones had only 12 peaceful,
buried years here before making way for the freshly dead. Many of the dug-up bones and
skulls ended up in this chapel. They stopped this practice in the 1960s, about the same time
the Catholic Church began permitting cremation. But one woman (who died in 1983) man-
