Author name: Smith

Evolution of death

We spent quite some time throughout this trip learning about death and how it’s dealt with in France today and how it has been dealt with throughout history. It was really interesting to me to see how time had changed death practices in this country and just how different it is than in the US.

Before the 18th century in Paris if you were very powerful or well connected in the Church when you died you would be buried in the church yard or within the church itself. If you were not either of those two things you were not really buried so much as thrown in a hole with everyone else who died recently. The hole would then be filled in and a new one would be buried next to it. This happens over and over for hundreds of years while occasionally filling the holes with Lyme to try and stop disease. This practice though logical was actually very flawed. The pit of bodies was in the middle of a major city, it was filling up and it would flood. So as a solution in the late 1700s the French decided they would put an old quarry to use and fill it with the bones. This became the catacombs and is now a huge tourist attraction that holds the bones of 6 million people 8 stories beneath the southern part of Paris.
After the pit in the middle of Paris was no longer in use they open two city cemeteries on the outskirts of the cities. Visiting these cemeteries were probably one of my favorite parts of this trip. I really liked seeing how different people here make gravestones and memorials for their dead. I think it’s sweet, in a twisted way, how multiple people in a family can all be buried in the same grave. I also really liked that they were non-denominational cemeteries because people of all faiths were and are laid to rest in the same place. This is definitely a more evolved practice than the pit and I think it really works. In these cemeteries people are able to express parts of their personalities through their gravestones while keeping their family together forever. I like this personally better than the rows and rows of nondescript gravestones we have in cemeteries separated by religion. That practice doesn’t give enough credit to the fact that each one of the gravestones was a person with a story and a personality to remember, the cemeteries in Paris make it much easier to think about the people laid to rest there that way.

(I didn’t take pictures of the gravestones because I felt a little uncomfortable, like it wasn’t my place. Sorry for the lack of picture though)

After finishing my first day in Amsterdam, I’ve noticed a lot of differences the city has with Paris. One of the first being when I was looking at a map of Amsterdam this morning. The streets curve more and the blocks of buildings are trapezoid shaped. There’s a lot more water and shorter bridges. Also, their public transportation was much different. In Amsterdam, there is only a tram system and a bus system. There is no metro. The tram system is entirely above ground. The trams have fewer cars and smaller cars overall with less seats, and they’re also much less crowded. Bikes are extremely popular here, so there has been a bike lane beside every driving lane I’ve seen so far. The majority of the Dutch style buildings are built out of brick or have brick cladding, as opposed to the stone French buildings in Paris. Something I’ve noticed with the Dutch buildings is that there is at least one building in almost every row of houses that is slanting in some way. It’s usually a house in the middle of a row. I’ve seen some buildings with the false front facing is leaning towards the street. I’ve seen other buildings with belt courses that droop towards the ground on one side. My guess has been that it’s because these buildings are made out of bricks with mortar that could be pliable unlike the solid stone that French buildings are made of. The museums and attractions differ here as well. In Paris, there is a lot of art museums such as the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay. In Amsterdam, there are more modern museums like the Ripley’s Museum and the Madame Lussaud’s Museum. I’m spending a lot less time in Amsterdam than I did in Paris, but so far it has been a really great feeling to be able to compare the historic preservation of two foreign cities using my personal experiences. It’s been such an amazing month learning about preservation abroad through in person experiences. It’s given me even more confirmation that I’ve chosen the right path for myself and that I really love what I’m studying and that I’ll still love it outside a classroom setting. I’m incredibly thankful of this program and my professor, I’ve had a truly unforgettable experience. I’m excited to keep traveling and to keep learning more about historic preservation.