Round the World with Us

We visited the Catacombs of Paris.

A two hour wait was rewarded with a trip into dark tunnels that were quarries in the Middle Ages, but the site of several million skeletons, which were transferred to the Catacombs at the end of the 18th century because overcrowded cemeteries were becoming a threat to human health, made most of us wish we were still outside in line.

It’s not just that the Catacombs were filled with skeletons, but they were exposed skeletons – and not buried in any way, or set in there by relatively intact person, they seemed to have been sorted by type of bone and then arranged in sculptures.  Most sculptures were built along side of the walls of the tunnels – layers of leg bones – a layer of skulls – arm bones.  I wondered what sick person thought it was respectful to the dead to make the remains of people into sculptures.

Even worse, they are now on display for the 50,000 visitors who pass by them each year.  There is no way to exit quickly, so we walked passed countless displays of human remains, some in freestanding sculpture in the center of rooms – yuck.  A couple of little kids picked up some bones and banged them together – horror!  They even check our bags on the way out of the Catacombs to see if we had decided to try to steal some human remains as souvenirs.  The worst part of about that is that we could see bones on the table that they had actually taken away from departing visitors – ugh! Who would steal someones bones????

Another view:

Jennifer loved the Catacombs.  She viewed it as a pice of history, and the sculptures as a much more respectful final resting place than the mass graves many had been buried in originally.  This goes to show you that opinions vary widely, especially about something like human burials. Most of us did enjoy the part before we got to the bones – interesting carvings, seeing the quarry tunnels and an awesome well carved through the rock.

Think carefully before waiting in line and descending the many steps into the Catacombs of Paris – once you are in – you are in and there is no going back.

The album above has pictures so you can see what we mean and decide for yourself.

You can also read Meagan’s account of the Catacombs in her post here.