The Rothwell Bone Crypt

Built during the 13th century, Holy Trinity Church is a medieval landmark in the town of Rothwell, England. However, beneath the church is a charnel chapel containing one of the creepiest sights ever found inside a place of worship: an entire room stacked with human bones.

Known as the "Bone Crypt," the room is filled with the unidentified skeletal remains of approximately 1,500 individuals. At one point, the room was sealed up, but legend has it that in 1700, a gravedigger working inside the church accidentally fell through the floor. The discovery of the hidden room allegedly drove him insane. The bones were eventually separated and organized onto shelves, and the Bone Crypt has since become a popular tourist attraction in the area.

Villagers have long believed the disarticulated skeletons at the Holy Trinity Church in Rothwell, Northamptonshire, were victims of the plague or soldiers from the nearby battle of Naseby. Intriguingly, no one knew the real origin of these bones for a very long time. Besides potential plague victims and soldiers, it is also possible that many of the individuals were originally buried in the church graveyard but had to be moved to a new location. Sometime during the 16th century, the adjacent Jesus Hospital was built over a burial ground, so the remains might have been dug up and stored in the chapel.

The mystery of the 700-year-old bone crypt under a village church has recently thought to be solved. Research by experts at the University of Sheffield's Department of Archaeology suggests the crypt, which looks like something from a Hollywood horror film set, was a medieval monument for pilgrims and villagers who prayed among the bones of their ancestors. Jenny Crangle, an osteo-archaeologist, made a statement that she wantd to put the rumors to rest and find the real reason why the crypt was built. Many people believed it was used as a big dumpster to get rid of unwanted human remains, but Crangle thinks it was a place of pilgrimage.

At one time there is believed to have been hundreds of bone crypts all over Britain, but they were lost during the Reformation. These crypts were a place for people to visit and pray for the dead, scientists believe. Osteo-archaeologist, Ms Crangle, who has been researching the ossurie for 5 years, has been using modern scientific techniques to solve the medieval mystery of the bones, which include 800 human skulls. The scientists concluded the bones did not belong to soldiers as they were a mix of men and women and the marks which people thought were battle scars were actually made after they were dead. It is also unlikely to have been plague victims as people who died fro the plague were given the same burial rights as everyone else and no one would have wanted to dig them up and move them.

Scientists also believe the bones were moved into the crypt from graves, and could have come from lots of different cemeteries. They now hope to secure funding to use carbon dating techniques to work out the age and sex of the victims and where they were from. Until then, the Bone Crypt reminds one of England's most bizarre unsolved mysteries.

Do you agree with scientists that The Rothwell Bone Crypt was probably a place of pilgrimage for people to pay their respects to the dead? What theories do you have on the Bone Crypt?

Source:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk...