What's the difference between columbarium and ossuary?

Columbarium


Definition:

  • (n.) A dovecote or pigeon house.
  • (n.) A sepulchral chamber with niches for holding cinerary urns.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Alternatively, there is an average five-year wait for a small spot in a public columbarium, where thousands of urns of cremated ashes are stored.
  • (2) Amid the scramble to accommodate the urban dead, one Hong Kong-based design studio has developed a prototype for an off-shore columbarium island called “Floating Eternity”, which could hold 370,000 urns at sea.

Ossuary


Definition:

  • (n.) A place where the bones of the dead are deposited; a charnel house.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This 1.5km-long ossuary (still one of the French capital’s most profitable tourist attractions) is dwarfed by the city’s 300km of underground tunnels that are closed to the public.
  • (2) A fused pelvis and two specimens of fused vertebrae were found in an ossuary at Ein Gedi, Israel; they date from approximately 2000 years ago.
  • (3) He has spent three years touring ancient ossuaries, documenting seldom-seen artworks crafted from human bones .

Words possibly related to "columbarium"