Where are all the dead people?

[Maastricht]

@MLS

There are vast catacombs under Paris consisting of stacks and stacks of bones from prior burials.

Correct. IIRC from my visit to the Paris catacombs, the majority of the stacked bones in the catacombs date from around 1770, at the last major clear-out of Paris’s poorer cemetaries. The bones of some 5-6 million people are stacked there, so that’s 5 million of dead Parisians from before 1770 already accounted for.

[Pushkin]

@naita

You ‘remember’ correctly, but your sourc(es) are wrong. Or so say the experts: http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/dead.htm

Thanks for the link, I was going to hijack the thread to ask this

[AWB]

If all the world’s current population (~6 billion) gathered in one area and stood in adjoining 1 sq meter boxes, they only cover a square about 50 miles on each side.

So if all the world’s people could stand in the state of Rhode Island, I’m sure all those that have passed would fit in an area not too much bigger. Certainly not overwhelming.

[chrisk]

Since we’re talking about the number of people who have ever lived and died on earth, I’ll through this quote in. The numbers might not be accurate anymore, but it’s cool nonetheless:

-“Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth.
–Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this universe, there shines a star.” (from Clarke’s foreword in 2001, A Space Odyssey, 1968)

[Bookkeeper]

@AWB

If all the world’s current population (~6 billion) gathered in one area and stood in adjoining 1 sq meter boxes, they only cover a square about 50 miles on each side.

So if all the world’s people could stand in the state of Rhode Island, I’m sure all those that have passed would fit in an area not too much bigger. Certainly not overwhelming.

Or on Zanzibar.

[Spoke]

@Maastricht

Correct. IIRC from my visit to the Paris catacombs, the majority of the stacked bones in the catacombs date from around 1770, at the last major clear-out of Paris’s poorer cemetaries. The bones of some 5-6 million people are stacked there, so that’s 5 million of dead Parisians from before 1770 already accounted for.

And there are “ossuaries” like that in other parts of Europe, some with bones arranged in artistic fashion. I’ve visited such sites in the Czech Republic and Portugal (click links for photos).

[Cervaise]

@robby

For a Boy Scout project, I once renovated a small century-old community cemetery in Tennessee.

Man, you had it easy. When I was in scouting, we had to embalm someone to get our death badge.

[Blake]

@Cervaise

Man, you had it easy. When I was in scouting, we had to embalm someone to get our death badge.

Luxury. We had to inhume someone to get our death badge.

[priapus]

I like to think I have 5 gallons of dead people in my gas tank right now