The ossuary lies beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints in Sedlec, part of the former Cistercian abbey. A Gothic church was built around 1400 in the cemetery, with a vaulted upper level and a lower chapel used as an ossuary. Between 1703 and 1710 Jan Santini Aichel built a new entrance to support the leaning front wall and rebuilt the upper chapel in a Czech Baroque style.
In 1870 the Schwarzenberg family employed the woodcarver František Rint to arrange the bone heaps. Four bell-shaped mounds occupy the chapel corners, and a chandelier of bones hangs from the center of the nave. The article says it contains at least one of every bone in the human body. Garlands of skulls drape the vault, and a Schwarzenberg coat of arms is made of bone.
The ossuary is estimated to hold the remains of 40,000 to 70,000 people. It draws over 200,000 visitors a year.
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