Hidden away in rural Poland is a small village with a dark secret. Czermna is home to the Kaplica Czaszek, also known as the Skull Chapel. Built in 1776 by local priest Father Waclaw Tomaszek, the chapel is decorated with 3,000 human bones and skulls, while another 20,000 bone fragments lie below the chapel in a crypt. Father Tomaszek was inspired by the Capuchin cemetery while on a pilgrimage to Rome, says the Polish National Tourist Office.

With the assistance of grave digger J. Langer, Father Tomaszek took 18 years to collect the skeletons of the deceased and clean them, then arrange them in tightly woven patterns. According to Atlas Obscura, finding mass graves wasn't a very difficult task, since thousands of people had recently been killed by cholera, the Thirty Years War and the Seven Years War. The two found the graves by watching local dogs dig for bones.

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From the outside, the chapel looks no different than any other place of worship, and even the interior bears some resemblance to other chapels: among the bones are a crucifix and two carvings of angels, one with a Latin inscription that reads "Arise from the Dead."

For a unique and eerie experience of what the Polish government calls "a sanctuary of reverie about life and death," visit the village of Czermna and the Skull Chapel. You'll even get to see the original builder, Father Tomaszek -- his skull was added to the chapel's altar in 1804.

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