Let's enter the catacombs.
There are hundreds of years of work here, to create a system of underground tunnels through which currents of pirates, smugglers, soldiers, and haven-seekers have found their way, in the deepest darkness.
The tunnels were carved by waves of users through soft limestone, using saws like this one, some larger than this. The walls, therefore, are flat rather than craggy and rough. The passage feels more like poured concrete than chipped stone.
People lived near-normal, sunless lives here. They had kitchens for food preparation...
...improvised ovens...
...grinding stones for flour...
...water wells.
Can you see how flat and regular the walls were? Joined at right angles.
There were communication centers...
...command centers...
...headquarters conference rooms...
...storage space for weapons...
...a target-shooting range...
...and places to sleep.
There were schools...
...and hospitals.
For the patient beyond hope there was a morgue, seen here as a doorway leading down.
The motive power of the people-currents in these tunnels was hope: different hopes for different people. Hope they would not be discovered; the pirate's and smuggler's hope of getting rich; hope of becoming free by resisting aggression, hope that there could be found sufficient supplies; hope they would not be betrayed by surface-dwellers; hope that they could some day emerge from the darkness, for whatever purpose, with their prize.
These giant hands carved from rock represent the hopes of tunnel denizens--aggressor and fugitive--that they could find safety and prosper their cause in the tunnels.
Above ground, after touring the catacombs, we took deep breaths that we would not take underground. Hundreds...thousands before us had also emerged: as prisoners, as victors, as escapees, as pirates, as once again surface dwellers.
Hope...the unrecognized mainspring of action. What a great adventure, and lesson, in the catacombs!
No comments:
Post a Comment