What the hell is Sivlitz?

So what the hell is Sivlitz anyway? It isn’t anything special or mysterious. Simply put it, it was a convenient mistake.

A long, long time ago, I happened to be passing through when I caught something interesting on the TV. Someone was watching a program about places in Europe and they were featuring a little ossuary/chapel in the Czech Republic. This place is called Sedlec. I, however, did not know that as I only caught the opening of the segment in passing.

The ossuary itself is remarkable for one simple fact: its interior is decorated with human bones. It seems an abbot of the town was sent on a diplomatic mission to Jerusalem in the 13th century. When he returned to Sedlec, he brought with him a handful of soil from Golgatha – the spot where Jesus was reportedly crucified. He sprinkled the soil in the chapel cemetery and by doing so, made it a hot spot (so to speak). Everyone wanted to be buried in the holy ground and not just locals, people from all over Bohemia were vying to be buried in the Sedlec chapel graveyard. There were more remains than they had space for so bones were dug up and stored in the chapel itself. In the 1800s, a Czech artist took the bones and began decorating the chapel with them. In its present state, the ossuary contains remains of about 40,000 people in various decorative arrangements.

I saw all this on the TV and decided that it would certainly be a unique place to visit. Again though, I didn’t know the name of the town. They only said it once during the time I was watching and they never showed it spelled out in any way, shape or form. I grabbed a piece of scrap paper and scribbled down the name “sivlitz” which was as close an approximation as I could muster.

(If that doesn’t make any sense, you have to realize that Sedlec is actually pronounced “SED-letch.” All things considered, “sivlitz” wasn’t that far off, phonetically speaking.)

To give you an idea of how long ago this was, I was registering for one of my very first aol accounts and was running out of ideas for a name. I didn’t want to be joe2364432 or anything like that and then my eye caught the piece of scrap paper I had written my little note on. That’s how Sivlitz was born and it’s been a sort of online handle for me ever since.

I should also note that I did finally have the opportunity to visit Sedlec in the Spring of 2002. It is near the Czech town of Kutna Hora outside of Prague. And yes, it is every bit as creepy as it sounds. Still very cool though…

More info at http://www.kostnice.cz/ and
www.ludd.luth.se/users/silver_p/kutna.html