#ossuary

The San Bernardino Ossuary in Milan - these are actual bones, displayed this way when the cemetery filled up, so they were exhumed to make room for other people. They chose to display them this way, beginning with the 17th century, as a way to remind people of "memento mori" - Latin for "remember that you must die".

Limestone Jewish ossuary with lid. Roman period, 1st-3rd Centuries CE.

From the plaque: Ossuaries were used for the secondary burial of bones that were collected after the deceased's body had decomposed. This practice was common, but not universal, among Jews in Roman times.

Make an Ossuary from my clean frame

Call Dr. Tattoo to decorate them

Flesh fills the tower of silence buffet

As canopic jars watch over the space

But leave the brain in a vat to come see

you could put in MORE skeletons!

Behold my Ossuary of Shame!