Chapel of Bones (Capela dos Ossos)

The Chapel of Bones inside the Igreja de São Francisco is Évora's most famous and most unsettling sight. The walls, columns, and ceiling of the small chapel are completely covered with human bones and skulls — arranged into decorative patterns using the remains of approximately 5,000 people. The effect is simultaneously beautiful and deeply disturbing, which is precisely what the 16th-century Franciscan monks intended.

The bones were collected from the cemeteries of 42 churches and monasteries that surrounded Évora, which were being cleared for urban expansion. Rather than discarding the remains, the monks constructed this monument to mortality. The chapel is off the south nave of the Igreja de São Francisco; entry is included in the church ticket and is well worth the cost. It is genuinely one of the most remarkable rooms in Portugal.

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A story
The inscription above the entrance to the chapel reads "Nós ossos que aqui estamos, pelos vossos esperamos" — "We bones that are here await yours." The chapel was constructed by Franciscan monks in the 16th century using the bones of some 5,000 people exhumed from Évora's overcrowded cemeteries. The monks' intention was explicitly memento mori: a visual reminder, carved in human remains, that life is temporary. Two mummified bodies, reportedly a man and a child, hang from the wall near the entrance.