Christian Influenced Columbaria
Christianity arose around one of the most famous deaths in history, that of Jesus Christ. In the West, the church found full expression in the great medieval Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals of Europe. This made these styles obvious choices for Christian cemeteries and funerary architecture in later centuries. The two great Christian building types, the processional hall church with its long nave, and the centralized baptistery, both came from Roman precedents. The basilica, a Roman hall of judgment, became an appropriate form to symbolize the Christian day of judgment, while the bath lent its dramatic dome to the act of Baptism and the cult of saints and martyrs.