2-376-801 - Samuel Magal/Sites & Photos/Heritage Images

Sao Francisco Church, Evora, Portugal, 2009. The Igreja de Sao Francisco (Church of St. Francis) is located in Évora, Portugal. It is best known for its lugubrious Chapel of the Bones. This huge church was built in Gothic style (with some Manueline influences) between 1475 and the 1550s to the design of Martim Lourenco, replacing an earlier Romanesque church of 1226. All its interior walls, and the columns supporting the ceiling, were covered with human bones and skulls. They were embedded in some type of plaster, such that they formed a sort of 'bone wallpaper' covering the entire wall surface. Inside, human bones and skulls completely cover the chapel's walls and pillars - the number of skeletons has been estimated at 5,000. Legend has it the bones come from soldiers of a major battle or plague victims, but in reality they are people from all walks of life who were buried in Evora's medieval cemeteries. The Historic Centre of Evora was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986.