The ossuary with skulls of dead monks in the Great Meteoron monastery, Meteora, Greece

---

This is the ossuary , one of the many things you can see in the magnificent Great Meteoron Monastery, that today is also a huge museum. You can visit the old cellar, the old cook shop, the old dining room of the monks (now a museum or religious art), 4 churches, the biggest of them dedicated to the Transfiguration of Jesus, with magnificent frescoes covering the walls Although, isolated anchorites and hermits were living in the caves and on top of the huge rocks since the 10th century, the Great Meteoron was the first monastery to be founded, when a monk, Athanasios, and some of his followers climbed the largest of the rocks in Meteora, called "Platylithos" around 1340. That was the first step in creating the Monastic State that we see today.

---

Size: 5621px × 3758px
Location: Meteora, Trikala prefecture, Thessaly, Greece, Europe
Photo credit: © Hercules Milas / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: architecture, central, complex, convent, death, destination, devotion, faith, famous, geological, great, greece, greek, heritage, jesus, kalambaka, kastraki, macabre, marvel, meteora, monasteries, monastery, monastic, morbid, mysterious, mystery, mystic, orthodox, ossuary, religion, religious, skull, skulls, thessaly, traditional, transfiguration, travel, trikala, unesco, winter, world