Deep under the streets of Paris, the dead have their last word. They tell of 1,000 years of death in the city: how many are buried in the labyrinth of tunnels from which Lesson Catacombswhat killed them and how the diseases that may have led to their deaths evolved over the centuries.
In the first ever scientific study of the site, a team of archaeologists, anthropologists, biologists and doctors are examining some of the skeletons of an estimated 5-6 million people whose bones were literally dumped in quarry shafts by the end of the 18th century. beginning of the 19th.
“As amazing as it may seem, there has never been any serious scientific study of the catacombs,” said Philippe Charlierwho leads the project. “Our research looks at 1,000 years of the history of public health in Paris and its suburbs, of the medicine and surgery people underwent and the diseases they suffered.
“There are other ossuaries in the world, but this is probably the biggest, so it’s unique. It’s the ideal place to carry out an anthropological and paleoanthropological study.”
A sign at the entrance to Les Catacombes, A 300 km (186 mi) network of tunnels 20 meters underground warns the 550,000 annual visitors to the site in capital letters: “Stop! This is the Realm of Death.”
In the latter half of the 18th century, the city authorities decided to exhume bodies buried at Les Innocents, near what is now Les Halles, in the central part of the city. Parisand from other overcrowded city cemeteries, ostensibly for health reasons.
“The story goes that people would be drinking, eating or dancing in a basement tavern or cabaret when a wall would collapse and decomposing bodies would fall on top of them. Just imagine the scene,” Charlier said. “It was then that the authorities realized it was no longer possible for Paris cemeteries to absorb the number of dead being buried. They decided the miasma was dangerous to public health and so a commission was set up to decide what to do with the bodies.
“The official justification was public health, but I suspect that with demographic pressure in Paris there was a real financial and economic interest in reclaiming the land for property.”
In 1788, under cover of night, an operation began to remove millions of buried bodies. They were dug up and loaded onto oxcarts that rumbled through the city, accompanied by a priest to the then suburbs.
“They were just dropped into the disused quarry shafts that served to bring up the stone used to build Paris and left piled up where they fell,” Charlier said.
In 1810, the inspector general of quarries, nobleman Louis-Étienne Héricard de Thury, decided that some respect should be shown to the dead and skulls and long bones – femur, tibia, humerus – in decorative walls, known as The Hague.
“He transformed it into a place that can be visited, not just for tourists, but as a kind of philosophical cabinet with engraved inscriptions,” Charlier said.
But behind the carefully arranged facades, built like dry stone walls, the remaining bones lay in a rubble-like mess.
Today, in another part of the labyrinth of tunnels, masons who through the Catacombs of Pariswho manages the heritage site restores a portion of Hague which collapsed due to water seepage.
“It’s the same savoir faire [know-how] used to build a dry wall,” Florent Bastaroli said as he placed smaller bones between meticulously neat rows of larger bones and skulls.
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“It makes you think about our own mortality and how we all end up that way.”
After one of the The Haguecollapsed in 2022, Charlier’s team of the University of Versailles and Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines opportunity to study the site.
As well as looking at the amputations, trepanations, autopsies and embalming the dead underwent, the study includes what scientists call paleopathology to determine what diseases and parasitic infections they suffered as well as poisoning by heavy metals, including lead, mercury, arsenic and antimony. .
Charlier says diseases that leave a mark on human bones, including rickets, syphilis and leprosy, are easier to identify, but DNA extraction from teeth allows them to identify infectious agents like the plague that kill too quickly to kill a make a mark
“For example, we can also see if the syphilis that killed someone in the 16th century is the same as the syphilis of today or if the infectious agent of the disease has micro-evolved,” he added.
So far, Charlier’s team has scanned bones and taken samples. He says radiocarbon dating, which they have yet to carry out, will allow them to determine the age of the bones, and simple counting should give a more accurate estimate of the number of bodies in the catacombs. He expects the figure to exceed 6 million.
The project is now in its third year and the team will deliver the first preliminary findings before the end of the year. Charlier predicts the work will outlive his career.
“The task is enormous. It is work without an end. I think the students’ children of my students will continue this and that’s good,” he said.
The aristocratic Comte de Thury chose not to look too far into the future. As one of the inscriptions he placed in the catacombs reminds visitors: “Think in the morning that you may not make the evening and at night that you may not make the morning.”
