What 7 Million Skulls Looks Like

Interesting Stuff

The Paris Catacombs

When in Paris, one of the highlights was a self-guided tour through the Catacombs of Paris.

 

The Catacombs doors open at 10 AM, and there is always a long line so plan to be there earlier than that. After buying your tickets, one has to descend a long circular staircase to reach the beginning of the tunnels, which were over 60 feet underground.

 

These tunnels lead to massive limestone quarries that supplied the building materials to construct Paris. They were actually started in the first century A.D. by Gallo Romans to build Lutetia (the forerunner of what is now known as Paris). The tunnels run for over 250 km below the city, but only 2 km are open to the public.

 

This is a carving of a palace by a quarry inspector who had served time in a prison situated across from a palace in the Balearic Islands. He started the carving in 1777 and finished it in 1782, using only his memory as a reference. According to the sign next to the sculpture he died from a "cave-in while trying to build an access stairway at this location."

 

A little farther along the tunnel, the famous ossuary appeared. A sign above the entrance reads, Arrête, c'est ici l'empire de la mort (Halt, this is the realm of Death). The rest of the tour was through an 800-yard-long gallery stacked high with human bones. In fact, The catacombs hold the remains of 7 million people, which were transferred here in the 18th and 19th centuries because Parisian cemeteries were so overcrowded that they constituted a health hazard.

 

The bones we saw were completely unsupervised. You could touch them if you felt like it. Don't, though. If this were in the United States, the walls would be lined with thick plastic.

 

Some of the arrangements were artistic, such as this big urn-shaped collection of skulls and bones.

 

It is overwhelming to think that every one of these skulls was once a living person with friends, a family, a job, and a reason to live. Who is this? We'll never know.

 

At the end of the ossuary gallery one walks up a very long circular staircase and exits through this nondescript door. Directly across the street is a privately run Catacombs gift shop, which has a free restroom, delicious espresso, free Wi-Fi, lots of skull-themed items for sale, and friendly staff!
Catacombs of Paris