The Paris Catacombs

History comes in many forms, both tangible and intangible. Humans experience and examine history in many ways. A history book poses facts and questions in a different way than a rusty railroad spike found in the dirt. Yet, both of these items contain history that teaches and sparks the imagination. Cemeteries contain a wealth of historical knowledge, too. In contrast to a line from a popular theme park and movie company, dead men actually do tell tales! Each grave, each epitaph, and each bone has a story to tell. 

Europe is home to some of the most famous graveyards in the world. High on the list in popularity are the Catacombs in Paris, France. The Catacombs are an underground labyrinth of ossuaries that contain the bones of over six million people from the late 18th century. It is hard to fathom that many sets of bones—that many peoples’ once-vibrant lives—together essentially in a mass grave.

Historically, the Catacombs were abandoned underground quarries, stretching several kilometers, that began reconstruction in 1774. The colossal burial site encompasses a portion of Paris’ old mines. The Catacombs were created to eliminate the city's horrific overflowing cemeteries crisis. Nightly processions of covered wagons finally began to transfer human remains from nearly all of Paris' cemeteries into the Catacombs in 1786. The remains were first deposited in haphazard piles but were later placed into neatly organized walls of skulls and other similar-sized bones. 

Today, the Catacombs are open to the public as a museum, attracting over 500,000 tourists each year. Many visitors claim the Catacombs are haunted and have reported hearing voices and seeing orbs and strange shadows in the tunnels. The ghost of a man named Philibert Aspairt allegedly haunts the Catacombs. In 1793, Aspairt lost his way in the in the maze and was found dead eleven years after his disappearance. Aspairt is said to haunt the Catacombs every year on November 3 - the day he went missing. It is said that many other visitors have gone missing in the tunnels and never come back.

Regardless of the veracity of these stories, it is not uncommon for visitors to get that “creepy” feeling while exploring the underground cemetery, and it is easy to understand why. For those who can visit and walk through the Paris Catacombs, they are passing thousands of people, long deceased. Whose to say that the spirits of the dead are not roaming the very same tunnels as those visitors, at the same time? I get the creeps just thinking about it.