cremare

Latin cremare meant 'to burn,' with no specific funerary connotation. You could cremare wood, waste, or offerings to the gods. But in practice, cremation became the dominant Roman funerary custom from roughly the fifth century BCE through the second century CE. The great funeral pyres — rogus in Latin — were public events. Julius Caesar was cremated in the Forum. Augustus built his own mausoleum but was cremated before his ashes were placed inside.

Christianity reversed the practice. Because the faith promised bodily resurrection, the intact body mattered. By the fifth century, cremation had nearly vanished from Europe. For over a thousand years, burial was the norm in the Christian West. The word cremare survived in Latin texts, but the practice it described was associated with paganism.

Modern cremation returned in the 1870s, driven by public health reformers who argued that overcrowded cemeteries were spreading disease. Professor Brunetti of Padua demonstrated a modern cremation furnace at the Vienna World's Fair in 1873. The first modern crematorium in England opened at Woking in 1885. The word returned to active use alongside the technology.

Today cremation rates vary dramatically by culture. Japan cremates over 99% of its dead. Italy, the homeland of the Latin word, cremates about 30%. The United States passed 50% in 2016. The Latin verb 'to burn' is once again the word for how millions leave the world — a return that would have been unthinkable during the millennium when Christianity kept the fires out.