It is difficult to find accurate evidence about the beginning of the use of cremations by man. Most studies point out to the Stone Age as a period in which there is already evidence of cremation, when most of the evidence is found in the Mediterranean Basin. During the Bronze Age the custom had begun spreading throughout Europe and at the same time began to develop in other parts of Europe. Later on, the Greeks and the Romans also began using cremation and greatly contributed to the spread of the method and custom throughout the world. During that period, they have started using urns and so the first columbariums were built to house the urns.
Around the year 400AD, while Constantine led the Emprise to Christianity, the practice of cremation was stopped almost completely, except in cases of mass deaths, wars and plagues. This situation was kept for the next 1,500 years approximately.
The modern processes of cremations started only after reasonably conditioned crematoriums were developed. The most significant breakthrough took place when in 1873, the Italian professor Bonatti presented the crematorium he developed at an exhibition in Vienna, and since then the custom began spreading on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In Victorian England, Dr. Henry Thompson, the queen’s chief physician, pushed the use of crematoriums mainly for health reasons, when he and his friends established the British Crematorium Union in 1874. Four years later the first crematoriums began operating in England and in Germany. In the United States, Dr. Francis Julius LeMoyne built the first crematorium in 1879. In 1913 52 crematoriums operated in the United States carrying out about 10,000 cremations.
In Israel too there is much evidence of the practice of cremation in various periods. On the website of the Ministry of Education, on the subject of archeological studies during the late Roman period and the Byzantine period, it is possible to find information about the acceptable burial methods, among which evidence of cremation.
In many archeological sites it is possible to find columbium caves scattered throughout the country from north to south.