The Claim
There a secret Roman temple hidden deep within the catacombs of Paris
Well to be fair the claim comes of the temple being far below the actual catacombs themselves, hidden somewhere with the ancient stone mining tunnels that predate the upper burial site by hundreds of years.
Most people have heard of the catacombs of Paris, and for those who haven’t they are a huge network of underground tunnels, thought to total around 200 miles in length, that contain the remain of people who have died in Paris since the mid 1700’s.
The catacombs were built where they are as it was much easier to expand the already existing tunnels to create room to house the deceased of the city than make somewhere new.
After the cemeteries of Paris began to overflow with the dead, and with no more room to build a big enough burial site above ground, the tunnels were expanded in 1774 and the transfer of the dead to their new resting site began in 1776 with an estimated 5 to 6 million skeletons being moved there.
But our story of an ancient roman temple deep below the layer of the catacombs comes from later mining expeditions. The first people to mine Paris to any notable degree was the Romans, as they were known to mine every single country they permanently occupied, and the rich quantity of stone deposits directly under Paris made for excellent building material.
The stone mines reached an unknown depth as many of the tunnels are too dangerous and have never been explored, but the tale of the temple comes from later mining projects starting in the 12th century.
Since the 12th century people expanding the labyrinth of tunnels reported seeing numerous signs of the Romans, such as wall carvings and the occasional coin, but it wasn’t until much later during the expansion of the tunnels to make the catacombs did a group of workers stumble onto the temple when surveying the lower levels.
They reported a small room with a stone altar and various artifacts hanging on the walls appearing to be of Roman design. They went to report their find but were unable to locate the room again in the endless miles of tunnel they were faced with.
There’s an ancient Roman temple beneath the catacombs of Paris, Could that be true?
Probably not but its at least a little bit possible. The Romans were known to be quite religious and extensively used slave labour to mine whatever resources they could use, giving no thought to the safety of the miners and so dug as deep as they wanted.
Temples were also common within Roman culture but in smaller settlement’s were not usually more than a small room with an altar, such as the one in the story and at the time the Romans held Paris it was nothing more than a large town.
As for why they would have built a temple room underground in the mines though begs question and is any ones guess. Perhaps an important religious man with Roman society based in Paris at the time wanted a quiet place to worship the gods undisturbed, or perhaps the story is nothing more than just another rumour of the unknown.
So why has no one found it yet? if its even real!
Well that fact no ones found it yet isn’t really as much of a surprise as you may think, as the catacombs and especially lower levels are extremely dangerous. There have been numerous people who have died in the catacombs after getting lost, and many of the lower tunnels are now collapsed or flooded.
There is literally no chance that the French government would grant anyone permission to excavate the lower tunnels, as a doing so may cause a chain reaction of collapses directly under the city of Paris, not to mention is would be stupidly expensive and dangerous to do so, so if there really is a hidden temple in the lower levels it will never be found.
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