"A Gothic church above a lake where the dead are exhumed, their skulls painted with flowers, and returned to community view"
The parish church of the Assumption (Maria am Berg)
Hallstatt, Upper Austria, Austria
High above Lake Hallstatt, the parish church of Maria am Berg sits between mountain and water in one of Europe's oldest continuously inhabited settlements. Beside it, St. Michael's Chapel houses over 1,200 skulls, 700 of them hand-painted with floral designs, names, and dates of death — a practice born when the village ran out of burial ground and transformed necessity into a theology of remembrance.
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Quick Facts
Location
Hallstatt, Upper Austria, Austria
Site Type
Coordinates
47.5634, 13.6489
Last Updated
Mar 9, 2026
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A Gothic parish church in one of Europe's oldest settlements, with an adjacent charnel house containing over 1,200 skulls, 700 painted with floral designs as an Alpine Catholic practice of remembrance.
Origin Story
Hallstatt's location between mountain and lake left insufficient ground for burial. In the 1700s, the church began exhuming bodies after 10-15 years to make room for new burials. The bones were stacked in the charnel house. Family members began painting the skulls with floral designs, names, and dates — transforming a practical necessity into a tradition of remembrance that continued until 1995.
Spiritual Lineage
The bone-painting tradition is unique to the Alpine Catholic communities of the Salzkammergut region. Maria am Berg's charnel house is the most extensive surviving example.
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