Speaking of Austria...

To follow up on my Austrian slideshow below, I thought I'd pass along a few more pictures. These come from Hallstatt, a lakeside town in the Salzkammergut below one of the largest glaciers in Austria (the Dachstein) where scientists have found evidence of salt-mining as long as 7000 years ago. Since the town is built into the side of a mountain (of salt and limestone) and is bounded by a lake, there isn't enough room in the cemetery to bury all of the dead.



So they exhume the graves of those interred for at least 15 to 20 years and then preserve their skulls and femurs in a crypt.



They paint the family name as well as some design on each skull to identify it.



By the way, despite the creepy skull chapel, Hallstatt is perhaps the cutest town on earth.