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Up until the Roman period, cremation was common in Europe. With the rise of Christianity, cremation began to die out as a practice throughout Europe. Judaism had a strong prohibition regarding cremation and this likely influenced Christianity's prohibition that the church adopted. This is also true for Zoroastrians, which originated with Iranian cultures. In their case, bodies were left for birds to eat. Cremation, for Zoroastrians, was seen as corrupting the sacred fire. For Christians, cremation was seen as desecrating the body during the day of resurrection. With the influence of Christianity, cremation largely disappeared after the 1st millennium CE in Europe. Islam also had derived from Semitic origins, which meant it had also prohibited cremation since it was seen as desecrating the body.
Cremation was at times practices in Europe, but usually it was done as a form of punishment. For instance, during the Protestant Reformation period in the 16th century and later, Protestants were sometimes burned or their bodies were ritually burned as a way to prevent them from entering the afterlife. This, in a way, was similar to being burned at the stake, where this punishment was intended to prevent an afterlife as well as act as punishment.
On the other hand, cremation spread in east Asia as Buddhism influenced Han Chinese and Japan. Thus, while cremation began to disappear from Europe and the Middle East, it now spread in East Asia to areas where it was previously prohibited, such as in China.
