Where were the Jews of the Diaspora buried?

Abstract

Abstract It is generally accepted that in the first centuries BCE and CE the dead in the city of Rome and in most of the Roman empire were almost invariably cremated, although other practices were followed on the fringes of the empire, e.g. embalming and mummification in Egypt, secondary burial in ossuaries in Judaea. In the second century CE, starting in the city of Rome in the time of Trajan and Hadrian and gradually moving outwards into the provinces, there was a drastic change of practice: cremation was replaced by inhumation. From the third century, inhumation was the norm almost everywhere. The change is well documented, although no wholly satisfactory explanation has been offered: an alteration of fashion seems more plausible than any fundamental revision of religious beliefs.