Paris Catacombs The Only Ugly Thing In The French Capital

If you’re visiting the City of Lights, right under your feet, you’ll find the Paris Catacombs and the bones of over six million people.

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1 of 28A tourist holds a candle next to a wall of skulls. August 1934. Imagno/Getty Images 2 of 28A structure built out of bones in the catacombs.Shadowgate/Wikimedia Commons 3 of 28Photo of the catacombs taken in 1861.Nadar/Wikimedia Commons 4 of 28A wall of bones in the catacombs.Dale Cruse/Flickr 5 of 28Photo of the catacombs taken in 1861.Nadar/Wikimedia Commons 6 of 28Plan of the Catacombs, drawn in 1857.National Library of France/Wikimedia Commons 7 of 28A rather unassuming entrance…Wikimedia Commons 8 of 28The entrance to the catacombs. The inscription above the portal reads, “Arrête, c’est ici l’empire de la mort!” (Stop! This is the empire of death!).Wikimedia Commons 9 of 28Photo of the catacombs taken in 1861.Nadar/Wikimedia Commons 10 of 28Photo of the catacombs taken in 1861.Nadar/Wikimedia Commons 11 of 28A sign indicating that the remains in this section are from people who died in 1808.Nadar/National Library of France 12 of 28Photo of the catacombs taken in 1861.Nadar/Met Museum 13 of 28Tourists visit the Paris Catacombs. 1890. ND/Roger Viollet/Getty Images 14 of 28Tourists visit the Paris Catacombs. 1890.Roger Viollet/Getty Images 15 of 28Photo of the catacombs taken in the 1930s.Roger Viollet/Getty Images 16 of 28A priest performs a religious service in the catacombs of Paris. Keystone-France/Gamma-Keyston/Getty Images 17 of 28Bones arranged in the shape of the Eiffel Tower.National Library of France 18 of 28British actor Alec Guinness films the movie Father Brown in the catacombs of Paris. 1955.Vagn Hansen/BIPs/Getty Images 19 of 28Photo of the catacombs taken in the 1960s.National Library of France 20 of 28A structure built out of bones in the catacombs.Rijin/Wikimedia Commons 21 of 28A human skull in the Paris Catacombs.Joe deSousa/Wikimedia Commons 22 of 28A structure built out of bones in the catacombs.Tommie Hansen/Wikimedia Commons 23 of 28Skulls arranged to form the shape of a heart.Wikimedia Commons 24 of 28A wall of bones in the catacombs.Mariejo71/Wikimedia Commons 25 of 28A tourist takes in the art of the Paris Catacombs. November 1, 2004.Jean-Francois DEROUBAIX/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images 26 of 28A model of the 17th century fortress of Port-Mahon sculpted in the catacombs. 27 of 28Movie-based graffiti found at the illegal movie theater set up in the catacombs. SnippyHolloW/Flickr 28 of 28Like this gallery?Share it:

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28 Photos Of The World’s Biggest Crypt — The Paris Catacombs View Gallery

Millions of people travel to Paris every year. With the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, the city has some of the most recognizable landmarks and tourist attractions in the world.

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1960s Paris: 44 Striking Photos of Reconstruction and Upheaval

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1960s Paris: 44 Striking Photos of Reconstruction and Upheaval

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1960s Paris: 44 Striking Photos of Reconstruction and Upheaval

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1 of 28A tourist holds a candle next to a wall of skulls. August 1934. Imagno/Getty Images

2 of 28A structure built out of bones in the catacombs.Shadowgate/Wikimedia Commons

3 of 28Photo of the catacombs taken in 1861.Nadar/Wikimedia Commons

4 of 28A wall of bones in the catacombs.Dale Cruse/Flickr

5 of 28Photo of the catacombs taken in 1861.Nadar/Wikimedia Commons

6 of 28Plan of the Catacombs, drawn in 1857.National Library of France/Wikimedia Commons

7 of 28A rather unassuming entrance…Wikimedia Commons

8 of 28The entrance to the catacombs. The inscription above the portal reads, “Arrête, c’est ici l’empire de la mort!” (Stop! This is the empire of death!).Wikimedia Commons

9 of 28Photo of the catacombs taken in 1861.Nadar/Wikimedia Commons

10 of 28Photo of the catacombs taken in 1861.Nadar/Wikimedia Commons

11 of 28A sign indicating that the remains in this section are from people who died in 1808.Nadar/National Library of France

12 of 28Photo of the catacombs taken in 1861.Nadar/Met Museum

13 of 28Tourists visit the Paris Catacombs. 1890. ND/Roger Viollet/Getty Images

14 of 28Tourists visit the Paris Catacombs. 1890.Roger Viollet/Getty Images

15 of 28Photo of the catacombs taken in the 1930s.Roger Viollet/Getty Images

16 of 28A priest performs a religious service in the catacombs of Paris. Keystone-France/Gamma-Keyston/Getty Images

17 of 28Bones arranged in the shape of the Eiffel Tower.National Library of France

18 of 28British actor Alec Guinness films the movie Father Brown in the catacombs of Paris. 1955.Vagn Hansen/BIPs/Getty Images

19 of 28Photo of the catacombs taken in the 1960s.National Library of France

20 of 28A structure built out of bones in the catacombs.Rijin/Wikimedia Commons

21 of 28A human skull in the Paris Catacombs.Joe deSousa/Wikimedia Commons

22 of 28A structure built out of bones in the catacombs.Tommie Hansen/Wikimedia Commons

23 of 28Skulls arranged to form the shape of a heart.Wikimedia Commons

24 of 28A wall of bones in the catacombs.Mariejo71/Wikimedia Commons

25 of 28A tourist takes in the art of the Paris Catacombs. November 1, 2004.Jean-Francois DEROUBAIX/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images

26 of 28A model of the 17th century fortress of Port-Mahon sculpted in the catacombs.

27 of 28Movie-based graffiti found at the illegal movie theater set up in the catacombs. SnippyHolloW/Flickr

28 of 28Like this gallery?Share it:

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28 Photos Of The World’s Biggest Crypt — The Paris Catacombs View Gallery

28 Photos Of The World’s Biggest Crypt — The Paris Catacombs

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However, few of them make the time to visit the city of light’s dark corners: the Paris Catacombs.

Housing some of the largest ossuaries in the world, if you ever find yourself in Paris, make sure to visit the City of the Dead resting right beneath your feet.

So what is it? An ossuary is a site used as a final resting place for skeletal remains. Sometimes these can be just a box or a room or, as is the case with Paris, an entire underground lair. Down in the Paris Catacombs, you will find skulls and other bones from over six million people.

While it might sound like Paris was under the control of a killer cult for a couple of centuries, the reasons behind the ossuary’s existence are quite practical. They ran out of room at cemeteries. Lack of space is a common problem for any city that sees rapid growth, which is exactly what happened to Paris in the 17th century.

Nowadays, population booms typically signify that it will be hard to find affordable housing or that traffic’s going to be a nightmare. Back then, it meant that proper burials were growing harder and harder to come by. At the same time, Parisians were beginning to realize that placing cemeteries everywhere wasn’t a great way to go about promoting public health.

Before they were the catacombs, these 13th-century tunnels were quarries for limestone. Over time, the resources were extracted, and so the tunnels were simply abandoned. The solution to use them as ossuaries became pretty obvious.

Beginning with the 18th century, the tunnels began functioning as underground cemeteries and, by the 19th century, they became a rather odd, but popular tourist attraction.

In the 1940s, when Nazi forces occupied Paris, French resistance members used the catacombs as hiding places to meet and plot against the invading enemy.

In modern times, artists have used the Paris Catacombs to display their own work, and even built a functioning movie theater in the underground cemetery. Counter-culture groups have also held concerts and parties throughout the catacombs, despite the illegality of doing so.

Nowadays, you can take a 45-minute tour of the catacombs. Of the 4.2 square miles of cemetery, guests can tour about 1.2 miles of it.

Tourists can also see the remains of many former prominent Parisians such as the painter Simon Vouet, the sculptor Francois Girardon, and the writers Jean de la Fontaine and Francois Rabelais.

The catacombs cover much of Paris’s underground. If you’re ever wandering through the city and would like to know if there is a giant bone cemetery underneath your feet (which is a question most thoughtful people would like to know the answer to), look around for tall and, more importantly, heavy buildings.

If you don’t see many, the answer is likely “yes.” One of the catacombs’ main drawbacks is structural integrity. Since they can reach depths of 65 feet and are located directly under Paris, it makes it pretty hard to place tall buildings above them because they can’t have a large foundation.

Next, learn about how thieves in Paris drilled through these same catacombs to steal $300,000 in wine. Then, check out these images from the Catacombs Nightclub of the 1940s, that tried to recreate the macabre environment of the Parisian tunnels in Columbus, Ohio.

If you’re visiting the City of Lights, right under your feet, you’ll find the Paris Catacombs and the bones of over six million people.#

If you’re visiting the City of Lights, right under your feet, you’ll find the Paris Catacombs and the bones of over six million people.