Beneath the streets of Palermo lies a place where the boundary between life and death feels strangely thin.

In the Capuchan catacombs of Palermo, thousands of bodies lined the walls, dressed, posed, and in some cases, still watching.

How did this extraordinary sight begin?

And why did generations choose to be preserved here?

In this episode, we descend into the catacombs to explore their origins, their rituals,

and the stories of those who remain,

asking what these silent figures reveal about the living and our enduring desire to be remembered.

From the death-soaked depths of the Palermo catacombs, welcome to After Dark.

My name's Anthony.

And my name's Kat.

And today we are talking about a location in Italy that has captured the imagination of people

all over social media because it is macabre. It is fascinating. It is, it's enlightening.

You can learn an awful lot from it. and I'll try to dance around it too much

longer because we're going to be talking about the Capuchin Catcrums of Palermo. And who better?

To guide us through this, then, of course, our brilliant Kat Irving, who's been with us all of

this month, Cat is the human remains conservator at Surgeons Hall in Edinburgh.

And we have spoken about this place before.

I think the last time that you were in with us, before you were co-hosting, we were talking

about this particular place.

And I suppose just to give, just to give an idea of what, if you were to walk into it now, because I was looking at YouTube videos of this last night in preparation for today, because it's one thing for us to describe the history of it, which we're about to do and the different things that have occurred.

But to experience it, which I have not, but you have. So you can tell us about this.

It is an underground series of chambers, I suppose you would say.

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