les catacombes de paris

last week we went to the paris catacombs. running for 186 miles underneath the city, the catacombs are the final resting place for thousands and thousands of french citizens. in the late seventeenth century, several parisian cemeteries had become dangerously overcrowded - coffins would emerge from the ground, leading to epidemics in several quartiers. what to do? in 1786, authorities decided to move the bodies into the former roman quarries which run beneath the streets of paris. the result?



the bodies are obviously not intact. it's strange to think about the workers who disassembled thousands of corpses to create the bone-lined hallways under the city. perhaps to amuse themselves during their labor, some of the remains have been creatively arranged.



throughout the caves, one finds poetic carvings, graffiti, and somewhat disconcerting memorials. for instance, this is one of the entrances to the grave (today the only legal entrance, part of the musée des catacombes):



("stop! here is the empire of death.")


what i wonder is why the city chose to dispose of the bodies in this way. wouldn't it have been more economical (and sanitary) to cremate them? it's not like the corpses were respectfully kept intact; for the most part, it seems like only arm and leg bones and skulls compose the walls.



the tunnels were originally limestone mines built and used by the romans, but people have long been going underground for other purposes - many of the walls are covered in graffiti. aristocrats would hold parties in the crypts before the revolution. during world war two, the germans set up a secret bunker, while the french resistance used the catacombes as their headquarters.



today, one can legally reach the catacombes only through the museum, but the crypts available for viewing are a tiny part of the system. of course, there are lots of illegal tours you can risk, but they can be dangerous...