by JOE
ZIAS

1
Josephus,
Jewish War 7.203.

2Bella Civilia 1.120.

Undoubtedly, one of the
cruelest and most humiliating forms of punishment in the ancient world
was, according to ancient sources, crucifixion. The Jewish historian
Josephus best described it following the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans
in AD 66-70 as "the most wretched of deaths."1 Whereas in Seneca's Epistle 101 to
Lucilius, he argues that suicide is preferable to the cruel fate of being
put on the cross.

This form of state terror was widespread across
the Roman Empire which included Europe, North Africa and Western Asia. It
originated several centuries before the Common Era and continued into the
fourth century AD when the practice was discontinued by Constantine, the
emperor of Rome. While its origins are obscured in antiquity, it is clear
that this form of capital punishment lasted for around 800 years and tens
if not hundreds of thousands of individuals were subject to this cruel and
humiliating death. Mass executions in which hundreds and thousands died –
such as the well known crucifixion of 6,000 followers of Spartacus as
part, of a victory celebration along the Appian Way in 71 BCE – appear in
the literature.2

3 Plutarch (AD
46-120)
Mor.554A/B.

4
Curtius Rufus, Hist. Alex. 4.4.17.

While many people believe that crucifixion was
reserved for criminals only as a result of Plutarch's passage that "each
criminal condemned to death bears his cross on his back,"3 the literature clearly shows that this
class of individuals were not the only ones subjected to this ultimate
fate. Alexander the Great had 2,000 survivors from the siege of Tyre
crucified on the shores of the Mediterranean.4 In addition, during the times of
Caligula – AD 37-41 – Jews were tortured and crucified in the amphitheater
to entertain the inhabitants of Alexandria. Women are seldom if ever
mentioned specifically in the ancient sources aside from two passages in
the Mishna, one in Tractate Mourning 2.11 which suggests that women
may have been sacrificed as well. The second reference is found in
Sanhedrin 6.5 in which Simeon B. Shetah had 70 or 80 sorceresses
hung in the city of Ashkelon. However, as crucifixion was widely employed
with slaves, one can assume that, in the ancient world its use was thus
not limited by gender but mainly by class.

Crucifixion amongst the
Jews was rare and except for a few instances, the subject was stoned to
death first and then hung on a tree in accordance with the Biblical
passage in Deuteronomy 21:22-23:

"When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death
and executed, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all
night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung
on a tree is under God's curse."

5
Josephus,
Antiquities 12.256.

6 V. Tzaferis, "Jewish Tombs at and Near
Giv'at ha-Mivtar," Israel Exploration Journal 20:31, 1971.

There was one notable exception to this passage
in which the victims were first killed via crucifixion rather that being
hung on a tree after death. This was the case with the high priest,
Alexander Janneus in which 800 Pharisees were crucified in Jerusalem in
267 BC before their wives and children. While on the cross, according to
Josephus5 the women and children
were then slaughtered. Despite this plethora of literary evidence for
crucifixion over the centuries in the ancient world, the direct
anthropological evidence amounts to but one case from Jerusalem discovered
in 1968.

THE CRUCIFIED MAN FROM GIV'AT HA-MIVTAR

In
1968 building contractors working in a suburb north of Jerusalem
accidentally uncovered a Jewish tomb dated to the first century after the
death of Christ.6 Lying in a Jewish
ossuary bearing the Hebrew inscription 'Jehohanan the son of HGQWL' were
the skeletal remains of a man in his twenties, who had been crucified. The
evidence for this was based on the right calcaneum (heel bone) of the
individual, pierced by an iron nail 11.5 cms. in length. The nail
penetrated the lateral surface of the bone emerging on the middle of the
surface in which the tip of the nail had become bent. The bending of the
tip of the nail upon itself suggests that after the nail penetrated the
tree or the upright it may have struck a knot in the wood thereby making
it difficult to remove from the heel when the victim was taken from the
cross.

Remains of olive wood found between the head of the
nail and the heel bone suggest that prior to penetrating the heel bone the
nail was driven through a wooden plaque so as to increase the head of the
nail thus making it difficult for the victim to free his legs from the
upright. Due to the taphanomic process which occurred over a period of
2,000 years the skeleton was in a poor state of preservation. Being
friable and fragmentary, with many postmortem breaks, the right heel bone
was not amenable for proper anthropological investigation.

7 J. Zias and E.
Sekeles, 1985, "The Crucified Man from Giv'at ha-Mivtar: A Reappraisal",
Israel Expoloration Journal 35:22-27.

Despite the assertion by Haas in his 1970
article that both legs were affixed by one nail, a subsequent
reexamination by Zias and Seketes in 1985,7 found that many of the conclusions upon
which his attempted reconstruction were made, were flawed. For instance,
the nail which he reported to be 17-18 centimeters in length was actually
only 11.5cm thus making it anatomically impossible to affix two feet with
one nail. Furthermore, there was no evidence of traumatic injury to the
forearms, therefore it would appear that the individual was bound and
nailed to the cross as shown in the figure above.

8 E. Brandetiburger 1969, "Kreuz,"
Theological Dictionary of the New Testament II, I, 1969, 826f and
J. Jeremias 1966, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, London and New
York, p. 223 – quoted in Crucifixion Martin Hengel, pg 31, Fortress
Press, Philadelphia.

9
Josephus,
Jewish War 5.11 & 451.

10 Shabbath 6.10

This near total absence of any direct
anthropological evidence for crucifixion in antiquity bears the question
of why, aside from the case described above, is the record silent. There
are two possibilities which may account for this silence, one is that most
victims may have been tied to the cross. In Christian art, the Good and
the Bad thieves are depicted as being tied to the cross despite the fact
that the Gospels do not go into detail as to how they were affixed to the
cross. Scholars have in fact argued that crucifixion was a bloodless form
of death because the victims were tied to the cross.8 Maxtin Mengel, however who wrote what is
perhaps the definitive scholarly report of the subject of Crucifixion in
antiquity, takes along with Hewitt (1932) an opposing view. He argues that
nailing the victim by both hands and feet was the rule and tying the
victim to the cross was the exception. During the first revolt of the jews
against the Romans in AD 66-73, Josephus mentions that in the fall of
Jerusalem (AD 70), "the soldiers out of rage and hatred amused themselves
by nailing their prisoners in different postures."9 In spite of these differences of
opinion, I would take a differing view and suggest that the number of
individuals being crucified may in fact determine the manner in which the
execution took form. If, as in the case with the account of 6,000
prisoners of war being crucified along the Via Appia between the cities of
Rome and Cappua, as part of a victory celebration it would seem plausible
that the most quick and efficient manner was employed. That would be to
simply tie the victim to the tree or cross with his hands suspended
directly over his head. Death thus would occur within minutes or perhaps
an hour if the victims feet were not nailed or tied down. While this would
explain the lack of any direct evidence on the human skeleton when tied to
the cross, it would not explain the lack of evidence when the victim was
nailed. This latter issue is best explained by the fact that nails of a
victim crucified were among some of the most powerful medical amulets in
antiquity and thus removed from the victim following their death. This is
attested to by the Mishriaic passage10 which states that both Jews and
Amorites (colloquium for non-Jews) may carry a flail or whip from a
crucifixion as a means of healing. For the Jews, this was even, according
to some Rabbis, permitted on Shabbath when Jews were normally forbidden to
carry object. As this Mishnaic passage mentions both Jews and non-Jews
carrying these objects, one can infer the power of these amulets.

PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE TO CRUCIFIXION

11 Stroud
1874; J.R. Whitaker 1935 The Physical Cause of the Death of Our
Lord, Address to the St. Luke's Guild, London England; U. Wedessow
1978 Considerazioni ipotetiche sulla causa fisica della morte dell'
iliomo della sindone.

12
Zugibe, 1984
13 LeBec 1925, Hynek
1936, Barbet 1937, Modder 1949

14
F.T. Zugibe, 1984 "Death by Crucifixion, Canadian Society
of Forensic Science 17(1):1-13.6.

15A condition characterized by low blood
pressure and reduced blood flow to the cells and tissues which leads to
irreversible cell and organ injury and eventually death.

16 Josephus,
Life of 75.420-421

17 P. Barbet 1953 Les Cinq Plaies du
Christ 2nd ed. Paris: Procure du Carmel de l' Action de Graces.

The complicated and much debated issue
regarding how the individual expired on the cross has generated widespread
debate over the years. While many researchers have believed that death
occurred as the result of a ruptured heart11 due to the story in John 19:34 of the
water and blood flowing out of the wound, pathologists such as
Zugibe,12 have ruled this out as
medically untenable. Other scholars13 have regarded asphyxiation as being the
cause of death, however the latest research findings have shown the issue
to be more complicated, depending upon the manner in which the victim was
affixed to the cross. A series of experiments carried out by an American
medical examiner and pathologist on college students who volunteered to be
tied to crosses, showed that if the students were suspended from crosses
with their arms outstretched in the traditional manner depicted in
Christian art, they experienced no problems breathing.14 Thus the often quoted theory that death
on the cross is the result of asphyxiation is no longer tenable if the
arms are outstretched. According to the physiological response of the
students, which was closely monitored by Zugibe, death in this manner is
the result of the victim going into hypovolemic shock.15 Death is this manner can be in, a
manner of hours, or days depending on the manner in which the victim is
affixed to the cross. If the victim is crucified with a small seat, a
sedile, affixed to the uptight for minimum support in the region of
the buttocks, death can be prolonged for hours and days. In fact, Josephus
reports that three friends of his were being crucified in Thecoa by the
Romans who, upon intervention by Josephus to Titus were removed from the
crosses and with medical care one survived.16

If, however, the victims are
tied with their hands extended over their heads and left hanging, death
can occur within an hour or, in minutes if the victims legs are nailed so
that he cannot use his arms to elevate the body to exhale. For exhaling to
occur in a normal manner two sets of muscles are needed, the diaphragm
and. the intercostalis muscles between the ribs. With the victims being
suspended by their arms directly over their heads, these sets of muscles
cannot function properly which results in the victims inability to exhale
and results in asphyxiation. Eyewitness accounts by prisoners of war in
Dacchu during WWII reported that victims suspended from beams by their
wrist, which were tied, expired within ten minutes if their feet were
weighted or tied down and within one hour if their feet were unweighted
and the victim was able to raise and lower himself to permit respiration.
Death in this manner, which is one form of crucifixion, was the result of
suffocation.17

As a
deterrent in the ancient world, many of its victims were crucified where
the criminal event took place as was the case with thieves or along the
cities busiest thoroughfares. The situation can perhaps best be summed up
by Quintilian who wrote that, "whenever we crucify the guilty, the most,
crowded roads are chosen, where most people can see and be moved by this
fear. For penalties relate not so much to retribution as to their
exemplary effect."18

18 Quintilian (AD
35-95)
Decl 274

As one of the main objectives of this cruel
method of execution was its deterrent value, Roman authorities also
devised various means whereby the victim could remain on the cross for
days in public before eventually expiring. Thus the manner in which the
victims were crucified was not fixed by law but appears dependent on the
number of individuals involved, the sadistic ingenuity of those carrying
out the execution and the time needed for this spectacle to have its
maximum deterrent effect.

Giving the victim a proper burial
following death on the cross, during the Roman period was rare and in most
cases simply not permitted in order to continue the humiliation. Thus the
victim was in many cases simply thrown on the garbage dump of the city or
left on the cross as food for wild beasts and birds of prey.

Copyright © 1998 Joseph Zias All rights reserved.

Joe Zias was the Curator of
Archaeology/Anthropology for the Israel Antiquities Authority from 1972 to
1997. He is now retired. He is available for public lectures throughout
the world. You may contact him directly or through the CenturyOne
Foundation.

Lecture
Topics and other Information

JOSEPH ZIAS

PO Box 37209
Jerusalem, Israel
91371

E-mail: [email-masked]

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