From the Middle Ages onwards, Paris was built 🏗 using limestone quarried from beneath the city. This created nearly 320 kilometres of underground labyrinths, which had to be secured to prevent collapses. At the same time, the mass graves of Paris’s unsanitary cemeteries ⚰️ were becoming overcrowded with corpses. The most famous, the Cimetière des Innocents, caused a retaining wall to collapse, flooding the neighbouring cellar with decomposing corpses 💀. The king then ordered the construction of further cemeteries outside the city, whilst the overcrowded cemeteries were condemned. Their corpses were exhumed and transferred, at night and accompanied by a religious procession ⛪️, to the Catacombs. Beneath the ground, skulls, tibias and femurs 🦴 were arranged and became a visual work of art. Engraved plaques indicate the original cemetery and the date the bones were transferred.

Today, part of the Paris Catacombs is open to visitors and offers the city a mysterious side 👻, fuelled by legends of all kinds. Do you dare to immerse yourself in these places ? If you get lost, the intel will save you by showing you the way out [here] (https://intel.ingress.com/?ll=48.829558,2.334432&z=17&pll=48.829558,2.334432) 👀.