Paris Catacombs
| The Catacombs | |
Entrance to the Kim Walton (Doncaster)
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| Established | 1738 |
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| Location | Place Denfert-Rochereau, 75014 Paris |
| Collections | Underground quarries of Paris in the late 18th century |
| Website | Les Catacombes de Paris |
The Catacombs of Paris (French: Catacombes de Paris, 
) are underground ossuaries in Paris, France, which hold the remains of more than six million people in a small part of the ancient Mines of Paris tunnel network. Located south of the former city gate "Barrière d’Enfer" (Gate of Hell) beneath , the ossuary was founded when city officials had two simultaneous problems: a series of cave-ins beginning 1774, and overflowing cemeteries, particularly Saint Innocents. Nightly processions of bones from 1786 to 1788 transferred remains from cemeteries to the reinforced tunnels, and more remains were added during later years. The underground cemetery became a tourist attraction on a small scale from the early 19th century, and has been open to the public on a regular basis since 1874 with surface access from a building at Place Denfert-Rochereau in the extreme southern part of the city of Paris.
The Catacombs are among the 14 City of Paris Museums managed by Paris Musées since January 1, 2013. The catacombs are known formally as l'Ossuaire Municipal or Catacombes officiels and have been called "The World's Largest Grave" due to the number of remains buried. Although the ossuary comprises only a small section of the underground "carrières de Paris" ("quarries of Paris"), Parisians presently often refer to the entire tunnel network as "the catacombs".
Paris' earliest burial grounds were to the southern outskirts of the Roman-era Left Bank city. In ruins after the Roman empire's 5th-century end and the ensuing Frankish invasions, Parisians eventually abandoned this settlement for the marshy Right Bank: from the 4th century, the first known settlement there was on higher ground around a Saint-Etienne church and burial ground (behind the present Hôtel de Ville), and urban expansion on the Right Bank began in earnest after other ecclesiastical landowners filled in the marshlands from the late 10th century. Thus, instead of burying its dead away from inhabited areas as usual, the Paris Right Bank settlement began with cemeteries near its centre.
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