Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Skeletons in the armoire: Paris catacombs
Under the city's streets is a vast, ancient network of tunnels.
"Empire of the dead": Paris's catacombs hold the remains of some six million people.
The air was cool and exuded a musty, almost earthy odor. The passageway with squat ceilings no more than six feet high was lit by small dim lights, each bright enough to see only a few feet ahead. Small rivulets of water seeped from the walls to make the uneven stone floor slippery. Along both sides were thousands of skulls and bones, stacked in dense chest-high rows.
Each passage led to rooms with walls lined with stacks of human femurs and skulls, arranged with workmanlike precision. The only greeting along the bone-filled tunnels came from the gaping grins of the long-ago dead.
It is said the bones of six million souls reside here. These are the catacombs that lie under the bustling streets of Paris, France.
Continuously inhabited for over 2,500 years, Paris is the definition of an old city. For hundreds of years, the dead were buried in graveyards sprinkled on its outskirts. But as the city expanded, it grew around and engulfed these dozens of cemeteries. By the Middle Ages, Paris was a very dirty place where open-air markets coexisted alongside cemeteries containing the shallow pits of mass graves.
In the late 18th century, to clean up the city and save it from itself, it was decided to disinter bodies from many of the cemeteries and respectfully transfer them to the catacombs. There, the bones and skulls were neatly stacked and marked with placards of the cemeteries from which they came. The newly vacated space was then used for housing the ever-expanding population of the city. The transfer of the residents of about three dozen cemeteries, some 1,000 years old, continued intermittently for the next 100 years.
The catacombs are remnants of limestone mines first quarried by the Romans to construct roads, bridges, monuments and buildings. Over the next millennium, the Roman open pit mines developed into a series of underground mines, but were abandoned by the 13th century. The labyrinth of limestone tunnels was a perfect place to move the remains of so many millions of people.
Descending 75 feet from street level down a cramped spiral staircase, the walking tour continues under a stone arch chiseled, “ARRÈTE! C’EST ICI L’EMPIRE DE LA MORT.” (“STOP! HERE IS THE EMPIRE OF THE DEAD.”)
It only gets better from there. The tour of the Paris catacombs is a fascinating part of French history – but it’s not for the squeamish.
The entrance to the catacombs is in southern Paris on 1, Avenue du Colonel-Henri-Roi-Tanguy. The metro is right across the street. For additional information, see the Catacombs website.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Skeletons in the armoire: Paris catacombs
Under the city's streets is a vast, ancient network of tunnels.
Skeletons in the armoire: Paris catacombs
Under the city's streets is a vast, ancient network of tunnels.
"Empire of the dead": Paris's catacombs hold the remains of some six million people.
The air was cool and exuded a musty, almost earthy odor. The passageway with squat ceilings no more than six feet high was lit by small dim lights, each bright enough to see only a few feet ahead. Small rivulets of water seeped from the walls to make the uneven stone floor slippery. Along both sides were thousands of skulls and bones, stacked in dense chest-high rows.
Each passage led to rooms with walls lined with stacks of human femurs and skulls, arranged with workmanlike precision. The only greeting along the bone-filled tunnels came from the gaping grins of the long-ago dead.
It is said the bones of six million souls reside here. These are the catacombs that lie under the bustling streets of Paris, France.
Continuously inhabited for over 2,500 years, Paris is the definition of an old city. For hundreds of years, the dead were buried in graveyards sprinkled on its outskirts. But as the city expanded, it grew around and engulfed these dozens of cemeteries. By the Middle Ages, Paris was a very dirty place where open-air markets coexisted alongside cemeteries containing the shallow pits of mass graves.
In the late 18th century, to clean up the city and save it from itself, it was decided to disinter bodies from many of the cemeteries and respectfully transfer them to the catacombs. There, the bones and skulls were neatly stacked and marked with placards of the cemeteries from which they came. The newly vacated space was then used for housing the ever-expanding population of the city. The transfer of the residents of about three dozen cemeteries, some 1,000 years old, continued intermittently for the next 100 years.
The catacombs are remnants of limestone mines first quarried by the Romans to construct roads, bridges, monuments and buildings. Over the next millennium, the Roman open pit mines developed into a series of underground mines, but were abandoned by the 13th century. The labyrinth of limestone tunnels was a perfect place to move the remains of so many millions of people.
Descending 75 feet from street level down a cramped spiral staircase, the walking tour continues under a stone arch chiseled, “ARRÈTE! C’EST ICI L’EMPIRE DE LA MORT.” (“STOP! HERE IS THE EMPIRE OF THE DEAD.”)
It only gets better from there. The tour of the Paris catacombs is a fascinating part of French history – but it’s not for the squeamish.
The entrance to the catacombs is in southern Paris on 1, Avenue du Colonel-Henri-Roi-Tanguy. The metro is right across the street. For additional information, see the Catacombs website.
Comments