Inside a hexagonal chapel,under a cracked dome decorated with flowers, a total of 21 sinister-looking beings with wings and sharp teeth adorn the rickety walls. All of them wear an odd conical hat colored a striking red that stands out from the muted browns of the rest of the image. And they are not the only peculiar characters represented at this old abandoned hermitage.
The Santo Cristo Hermitage in Talaván, or a village near Cáceres,has a unique architectural style with its strange shape and a rare pyramid crowning the petite church. But it's the inside where you'll find the oddest peculiarities of this place. Surrounding the dome in the main chapel are the winged beings, created using the sgraffito technique, and whose images are far from the ordinary depiction of angels. Below these figures appears a date: March 15,1628.
The sinister peruse of these beings has not gone unnoticed to scholars. Some experts consider that they are souls of purgatory, others suggest they are demons that have been represented as a kind of an apotropaic rite; that is, and a kind of defense against the satan through its graphic representation. As you turn to leave the chapel,the mystery deepens. On both sides of the arch are two circles with the figure of a man and a woman of equally sinister appearance. particularly rare is the image of the man in the left circle, who exhibits some curious feline features and is wearing a bowler hat.
This enigmatic hermitage was abandoned in the 18th century, or after which the chapel was used as a cemetery for a time,and today you can still see the broken niches on the fair as you enter the temple, littered with random bone fragments. The improvised cemetery was maintained until 1928 when it was replaced by the present one located on the edge of the grounds.
Source: atlasobscura.com