The Alchemy Museum

~After leaving the Ossuary, we took a shuttle bus to downtown Kutna Hora (again disproving the "tourist information" guide who claimed their was no such transportation). The town was mostly empty and eerily silent, but I wanted to visit the Alchemy Museum inside the tourist visitor center.

^ The alchemy museum is located in the basement of the visitor's center, which was itself once the home a famous alchemist. The basement was once part of the silver mines that made Kutna Hora famous. The above exhibit shows some of the substances used by alchemists, such as sulfur and copper.

When they hear the word "alchemy", most reasonably-educated people imagine misguided Renaissance chemists who were obsessed with turning lead into gold. While transmutation (along with immortality) were the ultimate goals of alchemy, it was just as much a philosophical and spiritual pursuit as it was a chemical one. Alchemists sought to change themselves, using chemical processes as metaphors for their own spiritual and mental development. For example, just as an alchemist would incinerate a substance to reduce it to powder, so did they seek to burn away imperfections in their own spirits.

For an excellent introduction to this way of thinking (which has been almost entirely lost in today's scientific method), I recommend the fantastic Museum of Lost Wonder by Jeff Hoke.

^ This exhibit is supposed to look like a real alchemist's lab, complete with a furnace, chemicals, occult symbols on the walls, and a stereo. Oh, wait, that last one is just to add ambiance in the form of eerie music.

I enjoyed the underground alchemy museum very much, especially the exhibits (in English!) that expanded on the symbolism and philosophy of alchemy. After I was done with the basement portion of the museum, I was led upstairs to a separate section. Our tour guide seemed to know a great deal about alchemy, so I asked her if her ancestors were alchemists. She replied in the negative and said that she wasn't interested in the subject; she just works here to pay the bills.

^ The legendary Emerald Tablet of Hermes, the mercifully-short central text of alchemical study. Unfortunately, this is not the real Emerald Tablet, but I'm sure the real thing (if it ever existed) looked a lot like this.

^ After leaving the museum, my group wandered around the town and into a few shops. On the right side of the above avenue is a Jesuit college, while on the left is a row of famous statues.

^ One of the statues from the road. I'm not sure who the guy in the middle is, but the men on either side of him don't look too happy to be there.

^ The gigantic Cathedral of St. Barbara, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Notice the rows of flying buttresses on either side of the building, and how the sheer size of it dwarfs the people in the foreground.

Next: The beautiful library of Strahov Monastery in Prague.