Root Word Of Cemetery

Just a little note here of something I came across in a book I was reading.. I couldn't find many online references to it, but the best one is the first line in the third paragraph of the link below. I never realized it before, but it seems the word cemetery comes from a Greek root meaning "a sleeping place". The book I was reading said the early Christians built the catacombs as sleeping rooms for those who had passed on. This set me to wondering (more so) if the first Christians did not view death as a sort of wandering on, or other form or dimension of life, as most do today, but rather as a sleeping, while awaiting the resurrection "at the last day" as described in 1 Thessalonians 4 (13-18). Christians chose these "sleeping places" in lieu of the cremation used by other faiths around them, especially as they may have believed the "last day" of the resurrection of the body, and the return of Christ, was in the not very distant future. [Of course there's nothing wrong with cremation, otherwise anyone perishing in fire would be lost, which would suggest limitation to an all powerful God.]
www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090409/PUB03/904090387