An Underground World by Sylvie Robin

An Underground World by Sylvie Robin – The Catacombs of Paris – written in collaboration with Jean-Pierre Gély and Marc Viré – is the second book I read about the Catacombs in Paris, which was bought from their gift shop. On its own, the book might not have received 5 stars, but I read it imminently after the other one, by Gilles Thomas. The previous one talked a lot about the burials and made, practically, a virtual tour of the place. This one was about the geology and much of what the catacombs were used before they were used as a burial place. So, it complements and enhances what was mentioned in the previous one.

This book too has a lot of interesting pictures, many not included in the previous one. So I would highly recommend getting both and reading first this one. I found the details on the type of geology interesting, albeit a bit too much of the book was about it, about 30 pages, out of under 100 in total.

I also liked very much the inclusion of a picture from 1861 of which I heard in the audio guide while visiting the catacombs. The exposure was of 18 minutes because it was artificial light and the technology at that point was not suitable to deal with low light. A mannequin was dressed as a worker, with its “back” to the camera because the facial features were not particularly good, to show how the bones were in the process of being lined up. I enjoyed the book, but I wouldn’t have given it 5* on its own. The book needs much more on its history as an ossuary.