Paris Catacombs (Part One)

I'll be your guide for this posting 

-because this subject is quite large, I will have to break it down into smaller segments...kind of like The Lord of the Rings or something.

Not sure if this video of "someone lost" in the Paris Catacombs is real or not....you decide for yourselves. I bet it's fake. It is interesting none the less and has probably happened.  

Also, it does illustrate one of the MANY dangers of such explorations

A little background info.

Since Roman times

these guys

there existed stone quarries within the area of modern day Paris. Over the course of centuries, the city expanded, the quarries were abandoned, people died, were buried and so on. Eventually, the very ground which held the decomposing remains of so many corpses, began to contaminate Paris's water supply.

ewww!!!!

Different (ineffective) solutions were tried, until finally during the 17th century, the government settled upon the relocation of the dead to the old underground stone quarries under the city.

♪♪alouette chante alouette♪♪

From 1786-1788, the cemeteries were emptied and the remains of 6 million people  -that's a lot of people!!!- were re positioned to their new place ...nothing really fantastic about that...just a bunch of creepy bones in nasty tunnels.

AHH ......

                .......but under the direction of two VERY ARTISTIC Inspectors General of Quarries
(Guillaumont/Hericart de Thury) the bones were placed and ordered into some very interesting and appealing (huh???) arrangements.

it even has church services!!!

Eventually, the place would attract groups of people, whose interests lay in the macabre.
( hey!!! let's go see some dead people!)

That is how the "Paris Catacombs", as we know them today began, and since 1867, the Catacombs have been open regularly to the public.

The Paris Catacomb's official name is: "l'Ossuaire Municipal" (Municipal **Ossuary**)

 The website:

Les Catacombes

"STOP"

"This is the Empire of the Dead"

welcoming signs

nicely decorated 

Having such a network of tunnels beneath the city, has prevented the construction of tall buildings in the area, due to weight and potential collapse into the voids beneath.

with cool designs

But the Paris Catacombs (about 1.7 km worth) are only part of a much larger network of passages. 

end Part One

**Ossuary**

defin.:

a place or receptacle for the bones of the dead