Saint James's Chapel, Bratislava

Jakuba) is a ruined gothic chapel and surviving ossuary discovered underneath Námeste SNP in the center of Bratislava, Slovakia, in 1994.

Four versions of the same building were recovered: The first sacral structure identified was a rotunda of stone approximately from the year 1100 found in the depth of 3,5 to 4 meters, which was the level of the terrain at that time.

A coin found inside the ossuary, a Viennese Fenig, dates the construction to the beginning of the 13th century.

Since the building suffered from statical shortcomings it was rebuilt into its last shape in which it partially survived until today, with the internal and external walls being decorated by fresco-paintings and architectural elements composed of sandstone imported from Austria.

Remnants of a small medieval building, later identified as the cemetery chapel of Saint James, were discovered during the rebuilding of the SNP Square in 1994, during an archaeological session lasting from 1994 to 1996, conducted by the City department for protecting landmarks (Slovak: Mestský ústav ochrany pamiatok v Bratislave) under PhDr.

[4] Research on the bones recovered from the ossuary of Saint James's Chapel published in Anthropological Science revealed a case of atresia of the external acoustic meatus, a defect of the opening into the auditory canal, something not common in historic and prehistoric populations.

Terrestrial structure protecting the foundations of Saint James's Chapel in Bratislava, SNP Square