The Paris Catacombs
Curiosities & Unknown Facts
- Meaning of Catacombs: From Latin “Catacomb“, means underground or cave with ossuaries.
- Officially designated as “Les Corrierès de Paris” – in French, the Paris underground – the catacombs are an underground ossuary located in Paris, France.
- Resulting from centuries of exploration of Pedreiras since the period of Roman occupation in the city.
The tunnel system represents approximately 400km long, with around 300km of corridors. The organization of the Ossuary began in 1785.
Story
In 1780, due to overcrowding and the decomposition of organic remains in Parisian cemeteries, the neighboring population began to fall ill and die from contamination.
On November 9, 1785, the French Council of State decided to reformulate the Paris cemetery system and to take immediate action.
The idea of using the network of abandoned quarry tunnels is credited to Alexandre Lenoir, chief of police and general, and the mr. Thriroux de Crosne, his successor, for carrying out the order.
Executing the task – transfer of bodies – was in charge of “Service des Corrières“, a government organization created on April 4, 1777, to ensure the safety and consolidation of the Parisian underground, so full of landslides.
*Initially the bones were thrown and stacked neatly.
Only at the time of french empire (from 1810 onwards), the bones were organized with a certain artistic creativity.
Curiosities
It is estimated that the Paris Catacombs contain the bodies/remains of 5 to 7 million people.
- Victor Hugo used knowledge about Paris underground when writing: “The miserable“.
- In 1871 members of the Paris Commune they killed a group of royalists in one of the catacombs' chambers.
- The walls of the entire tunnel system are covered in inscriptions and graffiti dating back to the 17th century.
- There are groups of adventurers who are dedicated to exploring the underground of Paris beyond the Ossuary.
- They usually do it on weekends, like speleologists.
- They are called “Cataphiles”.
- The book "The Labyrinth of Bones" in Rick Riordan, from the collection “The 39 clues” talks about the Paris Catacombs.
- John Eric Dowdle in 2014 released the film “As Above, So Below” in English “As on Earth as in Hell”, talking about a young historian who, after her father, searched for a treasure in the Catacumas of Paris.
Caving – (from Latin spell, from the Greek cave, from the same root as the word “spelunca”) is the science that studies natural cavities and other karst phenomena, in terms of their formation, constitution, physical characteristics, forms of life and their evolution over time.