A Royal Box Of Bones

This beautiful postcard came from Postcrosser Henneke in the Netherlands. She tells me this is the famous "box" that contains the bones of Charles the Great, King of the Franks. She noted the bones were placed in this elaborate box 15 years after his death in 814. This had to be one whale of a box. By some accounts, successive emperors opened and reopened his coffin. Otto III found his remains some 200 years later uncorrupted still seated on a thrown still holding his scepter. Obviously, it was a tight seal.
During his life, Charles expanded the Frankish kingdom to into an empire that incorporated much of what is now western and central Europe. Charles reign saw the flowering of western culture and art.