I’m attending WineConf in Paris this weekend. A few of us arrived Friday morning on the red eye and had a bit of time to kill. What better way to cope with jetlag than to spend the afternoon deep underground?
After a bit of struggle at the ticket window (stereotype upheld: Parisians HATE to make change, even if there is a pile of appropriate coins and bills immediately next to their hand) we descended a long, long spiral staircase. There was no point in taking pictures because the stairway was totally featureless and you can only see a few feet ahead and behind. After a point I was overcome with the impression that I was walking on an escalator treadmill and remaining fixed in space while an endless series of stairs slid past beneath me. The stair-climb alone was worth the price of admission. At last we arrived at the bottom where there were a few carved-out chambers with explanatory plaques.
Francois comments: I can’t get any network service down here!
Next was a short hike (500M or so) through featureless horizontal tunnels. Quite a few side-paths were blocked off — this space used to be a limestone quarry, and no doubt goes on much further than the public sections. Occasional street signs indicating above-ground geography.
Every few feet a brick was marked with a date. It clearly took a long time to brick in and tidy up these tunnels.
At a seemingly-arbitrary point the tunnels widened and there were a few beautiful models carved into the rock face. A plaque tells who carved them, what they are, and how the carver died. It does not explain anything about his motivation — why carve a sculpture that is permanently anchored at the bottom of a pit? Why did the other quarry workers tolerate his frivolous life?
Then, finally, bones. I didn’t take any photos of the bones — flash photography was discouraged, and there was clearly no way to properly convey the experience in photos anyway. There are a few not-very-convincing photos of the ossuary on the catacombs Wikipedia page.
Walking through the ossuary pretty much turned my head inside-out. The scale is unimaginable — vast femur structures spanning room after room after room, stacked with skulls and ribs of countless unknowns. I’ve never faced the hugeness of the world like this — it made me feel tiny, and disposable.
A few security guards are stationed here and there throughout the catacombs to prevent people from defiling the remains. I wonder what it feels like to be surrounded by so many thousands day in and out? I wonder what it felt like to be one of the laborers who spent a lifetime digging up graves, hauling corpses, carefully stacking and interlocking bones. There’s something reverent in the way the remains are compulsively arranged, and yet, it must’ve felt like just another job at times.
At the exit to the ossuary is a small alter where masses were held on behalf of the dead. There are also several stones with uplifting latin carvings about rebirth (which, in my case, failed to uplift.) Then, the creepy coup de grace — before emerging into the light, guards searched our bags to make sure we hadn’t swiped any skulls.