The practice of physically marking a gravesite goes back thousands and perhaps millions of years in human history. The Egyptians carried the practice to its height with enormous pyramid construction to commemorate the life and death of pharaohs and their queens. The Romans marked gravesites with a type of headstone not unlike many of the 19th and 20th century headstones. In fact, most of the grave memorial styles encountered in 19th and 20th century cemeteries are not original and have been borrowed from Greek, Roman and Egyptian civilizations. Such classical styles as Doric, Ionic and Corinthian have all been used in grave memorials. Many of the memorials and their distinct shapes are also pre-Christian in origin. During the 19th century, the practice of using large elaborate grave memorials reached its height and continued through the 1920s, slowly giving way to smaller and less elaborate styles through the later 1900s. Today, small flat plaques are the norm in many places.
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