The Stellenbosch University (SU) Bakeng team had the most wonderful privilege of being hosted by the University of Bordeaux in France between the 26th of June and the 4th of July. Prior to that, we had a wonderful three days exploring as much of Paris as humanly possible and we cannot wait to share our experiences with you!
Disclaimer: images of skeletal material will be shown below.
Our days in Paris were limited, but best believe we made the most of our time there. We experienced as many of the wonderful tourist attractions as we possibly could - the Notre Dame Cathedral, Louvre Museum, Palace of Versailles, Sainte-Chapelle, various breath-taking cathedrals and of course the Eiffel Tower! In the next few paragraphs, I would like to share a bit more on some of the anatomy-related highlights of our Paris trip, namely the Catacombs of Paris, the Musée de L'Homme and the Panthéon of Paris. You can also read more about these attractions on our Instagram page @baru_stellenboshuniversity.
The Catacombs of Paris - where to even begin?
The team was lucky enough to explore the public part of the catacombs with a local cataphile, who gave us the historical background of the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the City of Lights. The Catacombs were initially quarries used for the excavation of limestone, which were formally closed on the 15th of September 1776. In its earlier days, Paris made use of mass burial sites such as Les Innocents. However, by the 17th century, locals began to complain that cemeteries were overflowing and at times, flash floods would cause the top layers of bodies to become uncovered. The solution? The quarries are empty right...
And so in 1786, Paris began to empty its cemeteries, storing bones in the vacant quarries under the city. It took the city 12 years to accomplish this and today approximately 6-7 million individuals have found their final place of rest in the Catacombs.
The visit was also a learning experience! Dr Alblas pointed various pathologies and unique biological profile features on many of the catacomb specimen. We may have to send a few students back to France to do some research studies! Some findings were very interesting such as the presence of metopic sutures in a number of specimens.
The Musée de l'Homme and Gallery of Man
Next on our list is our visit to the Gallery of Man, an exhibition centred around humankind at the Musée de L'Homme. The Musée de L'Homme is an anthropology museum established in Paris in 1937 by Paul Rivet.
The first part of the exhibition explores the uniqueness and diversity of humankind; both the evolution of mankind as well as comparisons between mankind and its co-existing paleoanthropological species. Of particular interest to South Africans was the cast of Australopithecus afarensis, otherwise known as 'Lucy' - a specimen of African origin and discovery.
The visuals utilised in this museum were phenomenal. All specimens on display in the exhibit are casts of the originals. Our students especially enjoyed the interactive parts of the exhibit, for example where participants had to try match the gait of various hominid species.
It was interesting to compare how the students experienced this museum in comparison to our own Iziko museum back in South Africa. The overall consensus among the students was that the Iziko museum was preferred, but I do believe that the language barrier made that we did not experience the Musée de L'Homme to its full potential.
The Panthéon
Lastly, we have the Panthéon of Paris - an architectural masterpiece, built in 1757 by architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot. The Panthéon was dedicated to the memory of great French men and women, and today serves as a repository for the remains of French citizens such as Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pierre Curie, Jean Lannes and Victor Hugo. I will let you go give yourself a history lesson with the assistance of Google for all those names, but I will tell you a bit more about two of those extraordinary people - Pierre Curie and Marie Curie.
Pierre's research on radium lead to its usage in cancer treatment in 1901. Alongside his wife, who also found her final place of resting in the Panthéon, they coined the term 'radioactivity' in 1898. Marie was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1903 alongside her husband and Henri Becquerel. In 1911, she again received a Nobel Prize, but in Chemistry! In 1908, she became the first female full professor at Sorbonne and was also the first female director of a university research laboratory!
And just like that it was time to say au revoir Paris, and hop on a bus to Bordeaux to meet our host Dr Yann Heuzé and be reunited with Guillaume Gracia, a master's student who recently visited us in South Africa to complete part of his MSc data collection.
We had a wonderful time exploring the quaint, picturesque town of Bordeaux as well as some of it's surrounding sights such as The Dune of Pilat, Château Villemaurine in St Emilion and Château de la Brede, which used to belong to the French writer Montesquieu.
Of course, we actually went to France to work, and I promise you we did. During our few days attending lectures at the University of Bordeaux, we learned so much from Dr Yann Heuzé. We look forward to sharing this knowledge with you but decided it deserved its own blog post. So stay tuned for that one coming soon, you won't want to miss it!
We would just like to extend our deepest gratitude to the Erasmus+ European Union programme, to Dirisana+ and of course Bakeng se Afrika projects for making this trip possible. The wealth of experience and knowledge obtained was amazing and we are all so grateful to have been able to share in this mobility with the University of Bordeaux.
Aimee Welmans
Bakeng se Afrika Team
BARU (Biological Anthropology Research Unit)
Division of Clinical Anatomy
Stellenbosch University