Gold and jewel-encrusted skeletons of two 2,000-year-old saints on display at abbey in Germany
The bones are covered head-to-toe in a dizzying array of valuable stones and gold
VISITORS to an abbey in Germany are able to get up close to a pair of bizarre relics - the jewel and gold-encrusted skeletons of two early Christian saints.
The breathtakingly ornate Church of the Assumption in Furstenfeld Abbey in Furstenfeldbruck, a town near Munich, is said to be the final resting place of Saint Hyacinth of Caesarea and Saint Clemens.
The bones are covered head-to-toe in a dizzying array of valuable stones and gold and proudly displayed in gilded glass cages.
Hyacinth was a young Christian living at the start of the second century who starved to death for refusing to renounce his faith to his Roman oppressors.
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Hailing from what is now Turkey, the youngster refused to take part in the ceremonial sacrifices to the official Roman gods and when confronted refused to abandon his faith.
His Roman captors only served him meat blessed for sacrifice to the gods, which his faith forbade him from eating, and he starved to death aged just 12.
St Clemens was a Roman consul with Roman Emperor Domitian, who had him beheaded for his faith.
The skeletons are not the only macabre aspect of the church. It was built in 1256 by Louis II, Duke of Bavaria, who killed his wife because he thought she was cheating on him.
To atone for his sin - she hadn't committed adultery - he was told to build an abbey by Pope Alexander IV.
As well as the finery-encrusted skeletons, the baroque church is stuffed with gilded altars, paintings, tapestries, and elaborate carvings.
The ornate home belonging to King Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, has gone on the market – 483 years after the couple’s controversial split.
The stunning Tudor residence, which boasts 12 bedrooms and a host of period features including carved timber panelling and Elizabethan timber frames, was sold for nearly £1m in 2014.