The Catacombs of Paris are underground ossuaries in Paris, France, which hold the remains of more than six million people. Built to consolidate Paris's ancient stone quarries, they extend south from the Barrière d'Enfer former city gate; the ossuary was created as part of the effort to eliminate the effects of the city's overflowing cemeteries. Preparation work began shortly after a 1774 series of basement wall collapses around the Holy Innocents' Cemetery added a sense of urgency to the cemetery-eliminating measure, and from 1786, nightly processions of covered wagons transferred remains from most of Paris's cemeteries to a mine shaft opened near the Rue de la Tombe-Issoire.
Crypt of the Sepulchral Lamp in the Catacombs of Paris
Les Innocents cemetery in 1550
Wall made of bones
Entrance to the Catacombs
An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary. The greatly reduced space taken up by an ossuary means that it is possible to store the remains of many more people in a single tomb than possible in coffins. The practice is sometimes known as grave recycling.
The limestone James Ossuary from the 1st century
Human remains on the walls and ceiling of Skull Chapel, Poland
A chandelier made of bones in Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic
Ossuary at the Gallipoli battlefield; contains the remains of French soldiers