There are millions of skeletons under Paris, and now their secrets are revealed: “It’s surprising that this has not been studied”

In the tunnels and in the chambers beneath Paris lie the bones of millions of people, now being extensively studied scientifically for the first time. The first preliminary research results are expected by the end of the year.

The research is reported by, among others, the French The World and British The Guardian.

The purpose is to find out how many human skeletons are in the catacombs, what they died of and how diseases have developed over the centuries. The research team includes archaeologists, anthropologists, biologists and doctors.

The catacombs of Paris are probably the world’s largest ossuary, i.e. a place used to store old bones.

“It is surprising that this has never been studied,” the head of the research project Philippe Charlier tells Le Monde.

From the graves the exhumed bones were thrown into the catacombs under Paris in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when cemeteries began to fill up.

According to current estimates, the catacombs may contain the skeletons of up to six million people. Some of the skeletons can be over a thousand years old.

At the beginning of the 19th century, some of the skulls and longer bones were arranged into decorative walls. Today, hundreds of thousands of tourists visit them every year.

Possibility to conduct research in the catacombs opened for the research team in 2022, when one of the bone walls collapsed.

According to Le Monde, the group has examined around 10,000 bones from the collapsed area by this fall. The researchers find out, among other things, how many skeletons can fit in one cubic meter. This gives a better estimate than before of the total number of skeletons in the catacombs.

In addition, researchers find out what kind of diseases people have had based on the bones.

Later, it is possible to analyze, for example, tartar and find out what people have eaten.

Research work will continue for decades to come.

“The task is huge. This is a job that has no end,” Charlier tells The Guardian.