Ossuaries, Part the First... The Paris Catacombs

So you have a problem... your bustling metropolitan city is growing faster than it ever has before... your population growing SO fast that your cemeteries have run out of space.



http://www.virginmedia.com/images/pariscatacombs431.jpg

To further complicate things, rainwater and excavations are uncovering the graves of previous deceased, improper burials (no room at the inn, remember?) is leading to ground water and land near cemeteries becoming contaminated (known as 'insalubrity' to anyone with far too much time - and a dictionary - on their hands) and spreading disease to those living nearby... what's a city planner to do?

Well first... stop people from burying their dead in the city by condemning all cemeteries within city limits. That should fix it.
But... what do we do with all the bodies in the cemeteries that are already there?





You're going to have to find some place to put them, I guess...







http://whygo-eur.s3.amazonaws.com/www.parislogue.com/files/2007/12/catacombs2.jpg

Let's find an underground quarry and fix it up... consecrate it, so that anything buried (or technically interred, as nothing was actually reburied) there has the 'seal of approval' of the Church and then move all the bodies from all the in-town cemeteries to this one central location. From the date of its creation (1787ish) to the last date that bodies were placed into the macabre setting (1867ish) that is EXACTLY what the city of Paris did. Within the Catecombs beneath the 'City of Lights, Lovers and Criossants', approximately six million people were interred from all the cemeteries that were and had been (up until that point) within the city limits.

http://badcontrol.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/catacombes-france.jpg

Et voila! Les Catacombes de Paris! C'est magnifique! Mwah!

Since (and even before) their completion in 1814, the Catacombs of Paris have been a tourist attraction in modern-day Paris, and used by both members of the French Resistance AND the German Nazis during World War II, as well as written about by Victor Hugo in his book 'Les Miserables'. Unfortunately, in September 2009, vandals scattered some of the bones about the tunnels in a juvenile and sacrilegious gesture of petulant defiance and the Catacombs were closed to the public indefinitely for repairs...

http://www.catacombes-de-paris.fr/english.htm
http://www.parislogue.com/catacombs