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Crucifixion cannot be emphasized enough. While Yeshua hung on the cross, people played games with his clothes in his sight: This happened in order to make the scripture come true: They divided my clothes among themselves and gambled for my robe. This is a reference to Psalm 22.Crucifixion = a mode of execution by fastening the condemned to 2 crossed beams. Being the form of death to which Nazareth's Jesus was sentenced by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate between 27 and 36 CE, crucifixion subsequently acquired momentous historical, theological and legal significance, providing subject matter for research and discussion until the present day.Its origins cannot be traced with precision. It is thought to have preceded hanging, of which there is early evidence. Hanging may have been introduced as a more humane and lenient mode of execution than crucifixion. Hanging superseded crucifixion in most countries of Europe, after crucifixion had been abolished by the Roman emperor Constantine in the 4th century because of its Christian symbolism. In non-Christian, especially Far Eastern countries, it was practiced until early in the 19th century. Beheading was practiced by the Romans (like the beheading of John the Baptist), and it was apparently a more dignified procedure of execution because of the swiftness of the death experience as opposed to the prolonged suffering that crucified individuals endured. Stoning was the preferred method of execution practiced by Jews in the 1st century and earlier.There are reports of crucifixions from Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, Punic, and Roman sources. Punic relates to Carthage/Phoenicia.It is said that crucifixion was 1st imported into ancient Israel by the Persians; Ezra 6, “I also order that if anyone defies this order, a beam is to be pulled from his house; and he is to be lifted up and impaled on it.” - but there is no report of a single instance of a crucifixion under the powers conferred on Ezra. If the hangings reported in the book of Esther were crucifixions, they were carried out in Persia, where crucifixions seem to have been customary.Crucifixion was the standard Roman mode of execution for non-Roman criminals and enemies of the state, and hence was practiced on a large scale in Judea under the Roman occupation. The extent of such crucifixions is demonstrated by the legal rules which had to be elaborated to meet conditions. As the exact time of death was not ascertainable, the fact that a man was seen hanging on a cross was not sufficient evidence of his death. It might be otherwise when wild beasts or birds had already attacked him at vital parts of the body. The reason given for the rule that the crucified cannot be considered dead is that a rich matron may still come along and redeem him, an indication of the length of time often passing before death ensued, and of the ability of some to bribe Roman officers to save the lives of executed convicts.Even if his body of the victim has become weak, his mind is presumed to have remained sound.As the blood from a dead body is impure, the question arose as to when the blood of the crucified becomes impure. There is one benefit apparently derived from crucifixions - the nail of a cross is considered by some to have healing effects in cases of swellings or stings, and may therefore be carried around even on a Sabbath. Romans used nails from crosses on which people had been crucified for healing epileptics, as per Pliny’s Natural History.The hanging of people on trees (on wooden crosses) is referred to in the Temple Scroll. Some account of the laws and customs of crucifixion is contained in most books on the trial and death of Jesus. It is said this crucifixion could only have taken place after the execution of John the Baptist in 28 CE and before the High Priest Caiaphas had been removed from his position in 36 CE - hence, the latest possible date for the final Passover attended by Jesus in Jerusalem must have been in the spring of 36 CE. The accepted view is that the death of Jesus took place late in the 20s or early in the 30s of the 1st century. The scholars brought up something I had never thought of before, and yet their estimation does not seem to line up with the idea that Jesus died at 33 years of age: they say that it seems reasonable that the crucifixion took place in the year 30 CE, when Jesus was 36 years of age, and only 2 years after the beheading of John.Archaeological evidence of crucifixion in Jerusalem emerged in 1968 during the excavation of a burial cave from the 1st century CE at Givat ha-Mivtar in Jerusalem. In one of the stone burial boxes (ossuaries) were the skeletal remains of a male named Jehohanan, whose right heel bone (calcaneum) had been pierced by an iron nail (length 11.5 cm). The anthropological study of these remains suggests that the arms of this individual were tied to the horizontal bars of the cross and that only his feet were nailed.Network Home - Biblical Archaeology Society published an article called ‘ A Tomb in Jerusalem Reveals the History of Crucifixion and Roman Crucifixion Methods’, which says in the history of crucifixion, the death of Jesus stands out as the best-known example by far. It is said crucifixion in antiquity was a fairly common punishment, but there were no known physical remains from a crucifixion. In 1968, archaeologist Vassilios Tzaferis excavated a Jerusalem tomb that contained the bones of a crucified man named Yehohanan. As Tzaferis reported, the discovery demonstrated the brutal reality of Roman crucifixion methods in a way that written accounts never had before.The history of crucifixion goes as far back as the Assyrians, Phoenicians and Persians of the 1st millennium BC, as well as the Greeks. The most detailed accounts are of Roman crucifixion methods.At the beginning, the practice served only as a punishment/humiliation, usually for slaves, and did not necessarily result in death. As Roman crucifixion methods evolved it became a means to execute alien captives, rebels and fugitives. During times of war/rebellion, crucifixions could number in the thousands. The convicted could sometimes hang in agony for days before dying.The discovery of Yehohanan’s remains offers scientists the 1st opportunity to study the process of crucifixion and Roman crucifixion methods. The bones were found in an ossuary (bone box), inscribed several times with Yehohanan’s name (“Yehohanan son of Hagakol”). This ossuary, along with others, had been placed in a tomb complex consisting of 2 chambers and 12 burial niches. During the Roman period (1st century BCE to 1st century CE), Jews who could afford this type of burial would lay out the dead bodies of loved ones on stone benches in rock-cut tombs. A year later, after the flesh lost its moisture, the bones were collected into an ossuary and left in the tomb with family members.Examination of Yehohanan’s bones show one of the many Roman crucifixion methods. Both of his feet had been nailed together to the cross with a wooden plaque, while his legs were bent to 1 side. His arm bones revealed scratches where the nails had passed between. Both legs were fractured, most likely from a crushing blow meant to end his suffering and bring about a quicker death. Yehohanan was probably a political dissident against Roman oppression. In death, his bones have helped fill in gaps in the history of crucifixion.Vassilios Tzaferis (VT) wrote that from ancient literary sources we know that 10s of thousands of people were crucified in the Roman Empire. In Palestine alone, the figure ran into the thousands. Yet until 1968, not a single victim of this method of execution had been uncovered archaeologically.In that year, VT excavated the only victim of crucifixion ever discovered. He was a Jew, of a good family, who may have been convicted of a political crime. He lived in Jerusalem shortly after the turn of the era and sometime before the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.In the period following the 6 Day War (when the Old City and East Jerusalem were newly under Israeli jurisdiction), a great deal of construction was undertaken. Accidental archaeological discoveries by construction crews were frequent. When that occurred, either VT’s colleagues at the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums or VT would be called in. Part of their job was to investigate these chance discoveries. In late 1968, the then Director of the Department, Dr Avraham Biran, asked VT to check some tombs that had been found northeast of Jerusalem in an area called Givat ha-Mivtar. A crew from the Ministry of Housing had accidentally broken into some burial chambers and discovered the tombs. After they looked at the tombs, it was decided that VT would excavate 4 of them.The tombs were part of a huge Jewish cemetery of the 2nd Temple period (2nd century BCE to 70 CE), extending from Mt Scopus in the east to the Sanhedriya tombs in the northwest. Like most of the tombs of this period, the particular tomb VT focused on was cut, cave-like, into the soft limestone that abounds in Jerusalem. The tomb consisted of 2 rooms or chambers, each with burial niches.This particular tomb (called Tomb 1) was a typical Jewish tomb, just like many others found in Jerusalem. On the outside, in front of the entrance to the tomb, was a forecourt (which had been badly damaged). The entrance itself was blocked by a stone slab and led to a large, carved-out cave chamber, nearly 10 feet square. On 3 sides of the chamber were stone benches, intentionally left by the carver of the chamber. The 4th wall contained 2 openings leading down to another, lower chamber that was similar in design to the 1st, but had no benches.Each of the 2 chambers contained burial niches that scholars call loculi, about 5 to 6 feet long and 1 foot to 1 foot and a half wide. In Chamber A, there were 4 loculi and in Chamber B, 8 — 2 on each side. In Chamber B, the 2 loculi carved into the wall adjacent to Chamber A were cut under the floor of Chamber A.Some of the loculi were sealed by stone slabs. Others were blocked by small undressed stones that had been covered with plaster. In Chamber B, in the floor by the entrance to Chamber A, a child’s bones had been buried in a small pit. The pit was covered by a flat stone slab, similar to the ossuary lids.9 of the 12 loculi in the 2 tomb chambers contained skeletons, usually only 1 skeleton to a loculus. 3 of the loculi (Loculi 5, 7 and 9) contained ossuaries. Ossuaries are small boxes (about 16 to 28 inches long, 12 to 20 inches wide and 10 to 16 inches high) for the secondary burial of bones. During this period, it was customary to collect the bones of the deceased after the body had been buried for almost a year and the flesh had decomposed. The bones were then reinterred in an ossuary. The practice of collecting bones in ossuaries had a religious significance that was probably connected with a belief in the resurrection of the dead. This custom was also a practical measure: it allowed a tomb to be used for a prolonged period. As new burials became necessary, the bones of earlier burials were removed and placed in an ossuary. Reburial in an ossuary was a privilege for the few. Not every Jewish family could afford them. Most families reburied the bones of their dead in pits. The use of stone ossuaries probably began during the Herodian dynasty (which began in 37 BCE) and ended in the 2nd half of the 2nd century CE.Thousands of ossuaries have been found in cemeteries around Jerusalem. Most, like the ones VT and his crew found, are carved from soft local limestone. The workmanship varies. Some that VT and his crew found in the tomb have a smooth finish over all their surfaces, including the lids. Others, especially the larger ossuaries, are cruder. The surfaces were left unsmoothed and the marks of the cutting tools are clearly visible.The ossuaries are variously decorated with incised lines, rosettes and sometimes inscriptions. Ossuary lids are of 3 types: gabled, flat and convex. They found all 3 types in their tomb. Often, ossuaries bear scratched marks at one end, extending onto the edge of the lid. These marks served to show how the lid was to be fitted onto the ossuary.They found a considerable quantity of pottery in the tomb. Because all the pottery was easily identifiable, they were able to date the tomb quite accurately. The entire assemblage can be dated with certainty between the late Hellenistic period to the Roman destruction of the Second Temple. The bulk of the pottery dates to the period following the rise of the Herodian dynasty in 37 BCE.The skeletal finds indicate that 2 generations were buried in this tomb. No doubt this was the tomb of a family of some wealth and perhaps even prominence. The 8 ossuaries contained the bones of 17 different people. Each ossuary contained the bones of from 1 to 5 people. The ossuaries were usually filled to the brim with bones, male and female, adult and child, interred together. 1 ossuary held a bouquet of withered flowers.At least one member of this family participated in the building of Herod’s temple, according to inscriptions.An osteological examination showed that 5 of the 17 people whose bones were collected in the ossuaries died before reaching the age of 7. By age 37, 75% had died. Only 2 of the 17 lived to be more than 50. A child died of starvation, and a woman was killed when struck on the head by a mace.A man in this family had been crucified. He was between 24 and 28 years old, according to the osteologists.Strange though it may seem, when the bones of this crucified man were excavated, VT did not know how he had died. Only when the contents of Ossuary 4 from Chamber B of Tomb 1 were sent for osteological analysis was it discovered that it contained 1 3- or 4-year-old child and a crucified man — a nail held his heel bones together. The nail was about 7 inches long.Many people erroneously assume that crucifixion was a Roman invention. Crucifixion was introduced in the west from eastern cultures. It was used only rarely on the Greek mainland, but Greeks in Sicily and southern Italy used it more frequently, probably as a result of their closer contact with Phoenicians and Carthaginians.During the Hellenistic period, crucifixion became more popular among the Hellenized population of the east. After Alexander died in 323 BCE, crucifixion was frequently employed by the Seleucids (the rulers of the Syrian half of Alexander’s kingdom) and by the Ptolemies (the rulers of the Egyptian half).Among the Jews, crucifixion was anathema (from the Greek word meaning ‘a thing accursed’). As per Deuteronomy 21, ‘If a man is guilty of a capital offense and is put to death, and you impale him on a stake, you must not let his corpse remain on the stake overnight, but must bury him the same day. For an impaled body is an affront to God: you shall not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.’The traditional method of execution among Jews was stoning. Crucifixion was occasionally employed by Jewish tyrants during the Hasmonean period.At the end of the 1st century BCE, the Romans adopted crucifixion as an official punishment for non-Romans for certain legally limited transgressions. AT first, it was employed not as a method of execution, but only as a punishment. Only slaves convicted of certain crimes were punished by crucifixion. During this early period, a wooden beam, known as a furca (or patibulum) was placed on the slave’s neck and bound to his arms. The slave was then required to march through the neighborhood proclaiming his offense. This march was intended as expiation/humiliation. The slave was stripped and scourged, increasing both the punishment and the humiliation. Instead of walking with his arms tied to the wooden beam, the slave was tied to a vertical stake. This slave talk reminds me of Simone Weil’s lessons on how Christianity is a slave religion.Because the main purpose of this practice was to punish, humiliate and frighten disobedient slaves, the practice did not necessarily result in death. Only in later times (probably in the 1st century BCE) did crucifixion evolve into a method of execution for conviction of certain crimes.At the start, crucifixion was known as the punishment of the slaves. Then it was used to punish foreign captives, rebels and fugitives, especially during times of war and rebellion. Captured enemies and rebels were crucified in masses. Accounts of the suppression of the revolt of Spartacus in 71 BCE tell how the Roman army lined the road from Capua to Rome with 6000 crucified rebels on 6000 crosses. After the Romans quelled the minor rebellion in Judea in 7 CE triggered by the death of King Herod, Quintilius Varus (the Roman Legate of Syria) crucified 2000 Jews in Jerusalem. During Titus’ siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, Roman troops crucified as many as 500 Jews a day for several months.In times of war and rebellion, when thousands of people were crucified within a short period, little if any attention was paid to the way the crucifixion was carried out. Crosses were haphazardly constructed, and executioners were impressed from the ranks of Roman legionaries.In peacetime, crucifixions were carried out according to certain rules, by special persons authorized by the Roman courts. Crucifixions took place at specific locations, for example, in particular fields in Rome and on the Golgotha in Jerusalem. Outside of Italy, the Roman procurators alone possessed authority to impose the death penalty. And so, when a local provincial court prescribed the death penalty, the consent of the Roman procurator had to be obtained in order to carry out the sentence.Once a defendant was found guilty and was condemned to be crucified, the execution was supervised by an official known as the Carnifix Serarum. From the tribunal hall, the victim was taken outside, stripped, bound to a column and scourged. The scourging was done with either a stick or a flagellum, a Roman instrument with a short handle to which several long, thick thongs had been attached. On the ends of the leather thongs were lead or bone tips. Although the number of strokes imposed was not fixed, care was taken not to kill the victim. Following the beating, the horizontal beam was placed upon the condemned man’s shoulders, and he began the long, hard march to the execution site, usually outside the city walls. A soldier at the head of the procession carried the titulus, an inscription written on wood, which stated the defendant’s name and the crime for which he had been condemned. This titulus was fastened to the victim’s cross. When the procession arrived at the execution site, a vertical stake was fixed into the ground. Sometimes the victim was attached to the cross only with ropes. In such a case, the patibulum (or crossbeam) to which the victim’s arms were already bound, was affixed to the vertical beam. The victim’s feet were then bound to the stake with a few turns of the rope.If the victim was attached by nails, he was laid on the ground, with his shoulders on the crossbeam. His arms were held out and nailed to the 2 ends of the crossbeam, which was then raised and fixed on top of the vertical beam. The victim’s feet were then nailed down against this vertical stake.Without any supplementary body support, the victim would die from muscular spasms and asphyxia in a very short time, certainly within 2 or 3 hours. Shortly after being raised on the cross, breathing would become difficult. To get his breath, the victim would attempt to draw himself up on his arms. At the beginning of his time on the cross, he would be able to hold himself up for 30 to 60 seconds, but this movement would quickly become increasingly difficult. As he became weaker, the victim would be unable to pull himself up and death would ensue within a few hours.In order to prolong the agony, Roman executioners devised 2 instruments that would keep the victim alive on the cross for extended periods of time. The 1st device was a sedile was a small seat attached to the front of the cross, about halfway down. This device provided some support for the victim’s body and may explain the phrase used by the Romans, “to sit on the cross.” Justin Martyr describes the cross of Jesus as having 5 extremities rather than 4. The 5th was probably the sedile. To increase the victim’s suffering, the sedile was pointed, thus inflicting horrible pain.The 2nd device added to the cross was the suppedaneum, or foot support. It was less painful than the sedile, but it prolonged the victim’s agony. Ancient historians record many cases in which the victim stayed alive on the cross for 3 or more days with the use of a suppedaneum. The theologian Origen writes of having seen a crucified man who survived the whole night and the following day. Josephus refers to a case in which 3 crucified Jews survived on the cross for 3 days. During the mass crucifixions following the repression of the revolt of Spartacus in Rome, some of the crucified rebels talked to the soldiers for 3 days.Using this historical background and the archaeological evidence, it is possible to reconstruct the crucifixion of the man whose bones were excavated at Givat ha-Mivtar.The most dramatic evidence that this young man was crucified was the nail which penetrated his heel bones. But for this nail, they might never have discovered that the young man had died in this way. The nail was preserved only because it hit a hard knot when it was pounded into the olive wood upright of the cross. The olive wood knot was so hard that, as the blows on the nail became heavier, the end of the nail bent and curled. They found a bit of the olive wood (between 1 and 2 cm) on the tip of the nail. This wood had probably been forced out of the knot where the curled nail hooked into it.When it came time for the dead victim to be removed from the cross, the executioners could not pull out this nail, bent as it was within the cross. The only way to remove the body was to take an ax or hatchet and amputate the feet. Thereafter, the feet, the nail and a plaque of wood that had been fastened between the head of the nail and the feet remained attached to one another as found in Ossuary 4. Under the head of the nail, the osteological investigators found the remains of this wooden plaque, made of either acacia or pistacia wood. The wood attached to the curled end of the nail that had penetrated the upright of the cross was, by contrast, olive wood.At 1st, the investigators thought that the bony material penetrated by the nail was only the right heel bone (calcaneum). This assumption initially led them to a mistaken conclusion regarding the victim’s position on the cross. Further investigation disclosed that the nail had penetrated both heel bones. The left ankle bone (sustentaculum tali) was found still attached to the bone mass adjacent to the right ankle bone, which was itself attached to the right heel bone. When 1st discovered, the 2 heel bones appeared to be 2 formless, unequal bony bulges surrounding an iron nail, coated by a thick crust. Painstaking investigation gradually disclosed the makeup of the bony mass.And now about the conditions under which the bones in the ossuaries were studied. The medical team that studied the bones was given only 4 weeks to conduct their examination before the bones were reburied in a modern ceremony. Certain long-term preservation procedures were therefore impossible, and this precluded certain kinds of measurements and comparative studies. In the case of the crucified man, the investigators were given an additional period of time to study the materials, and it was during this period that the detailed conditions described here were discovered.When removed from the tomb chamber, each of the 8 ossuaries was 1/3rd filled with a syrupy fluid. Strangely enough, the considerable moisture in the ossuaries resulted in a peculiar kind of preservation of the packed bones. The bones immersed in the fluid at the bottom of the ossuaries were coated with a limy sediment. As a result, the nailed heel bones were preserved in relatively good condition. Nevertheless, the overall condition of the bones must be described as fragile.Before they were studied, the bones were 1st dehydrated and then impregnated with a preservative. Only then could they be measured and photographed.Despite these limiting conditions, a detailed picture of the crucified man gradually emerged. At 5 feet 6 inches tall, this man in his mid- to late-20s stood at about the average height for Mediterranean people of the time. His limb bones were fine, slender, graceful and harmonious. The muscles that had been attached to his limb bones were lean, pointing to moderate muscular activity, both in childhood and after maturity. Apparently, he never engaged in heavy physical labor. We can tell that he had never been seriously injured before his crucifixion, because investigators found no deformations or any traumatic bony lesions. His bones indicated no marks of any disease or nutritional deficiency.The young man’s face was unusual. He had a cleft right palate, associated with the absence of the right upper canine tooth and the deformed position of other teeth. His facial skeleton was asymmetric, slanting slightly from one side to the other. The eye sockets were at slightly different heights, as were the nasal apertures. There were differences between the left and right branches of the lower jaw bone, and the forehead was more flattened on the right side than on the left. Some of these asymmetries have a direct association with the cleft palate.The majority of modern medical scholars ascribe a cleft palate (and some associated asymmetries of the face) not to a genetic factor, but to a critical change in the manner of life of the pregnant woman in the 1st 2 or 3 weeks of pregnancy. This critical change has frequently been identified as an unexpected deterioration in the woman’s diet, in association with mental stress. Statistically, this malformation occurs more frequently in chronically undernourished and underprivileged families than in the well-situated. But some catastrophe could cause sudden stress in the life of a well-to-do woman as well.Other asymmetries of the facial skeleton may be attributable to disturbances in the final period of pregnancy or difficulties in delivery. Thus, our medical experts conjectured 2 prenatal crises in the life of this crucified man: in the 1st few weeks of his mother’s pregnancy and a difficult birth.To help determine the appearance of the face, the team of anatomical experts took 38 anthropological measurements and 28 other measurements. The general shape of the facial skeleton, including the forehead, was 5-sided. Excluding the forehead, the face was triangular, tapering below eye level. The nasal bones were large, curved, tight in the upper region and coarse in the lower part. The man’s nose was curved and his chin robust, altogether a mild-featured facial skeleton.The man’s face must have been quite pleasant, although some might say that it must have been a bit wild. His defects were doubtless almost imperceptible, hidden by his hair, beard and moustache. His body was proportionate, agreeable and graceful.An ossuary (not the ossuary containing the crucified man) was inscribed in Aramaic on the side: “Simon, builder of the Temple.” Apparently, at least 1 member of the family participated in Herod’s rebuilding of the Temple on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Simon may well have been a master mason or an engineer. Another ossuary was inscribed “Yehonathan the potter.”The crucified man’s remains reveal the horrible manner of his dying.From the way in which the bones were attached, we can infer the man’s position on the cross. The 2 heel bones were attached on their adjacent inside (medial) surfaces. The nail went through the right heel bone and then the left. Since the same nail went through both heels, the legs were together, not apart, on the cross.A study of the 2 heel bones and the nail that penetrated them at an angle pointing downward and sideways indicates that the feet of the victim were not fastened tightly to the cross. The evidence as to the position of the body on the cross convinced the investigators that the sedile supported only the man’s left buttock. This seat prevented the collapse of the body and prolonged the agony.Given this position on the cross and given the way in which the heel bones were attached to the cross, it seems likely that the knees were bent, or semi-flexed. This position of the legs was dramatically confirmed by a study of the long bones below the knees, the tibia or shinbone, and the fibula behind it.Only the tibia of the crucified man’s right leg was available for study. The bone had been brutally fractured into large, sharp slivers. This fracture was clearly produced by a single, strong blow. The left calf bones were lying across the sharp edge of the wooden cross. The left calf bones broke in a straight, sharp-toothed line on the edge of the cross, a line characteristic of a fresh bone fracture. This fracture resulted from the pressure on both sides of the bone: on 1 side from the direct blow on the right leg and on the other from the resistance of the edge of the cross.The angle of the line of fracture on these left calf bones provides proof that the victim’s legs were in a semi-flexed position on the cross. The angle of the fracture indicates that the bones formed an angle of 60° to 65° as they crossed the upright of the cross. This compels the interpretation that the legs were semi-flexed.When we add this evidence to that of the nail and the way in which the heel bones were attached to the cross, we must conclude that this position into which the victim’s body was forced was difficult and unnatural.The arm bones of the victim revealed the manner in which they were attached to the horizontal bar of the cross. A small scratch was observed on 1 bone (the radius) of the right forearm, just above the wrist. The scratch was produced by the compression, friction and gliding of an object on the fresh bone. This scratch is the evidence of the penetration of the nail between the 2 bones of the forearm, the radius and the ulna.Some Christian iconography shows the nails piercing the palms of Jesus’ hands. Nailing the palms of the hands is impossible, because the weight of the slumping body would have torn the palms in a very short time. The victim would have fallen from the cross while still alive. As the evidence from our crucified man demonstrates, the nails were driven into the victim’s arms, just above the wrists, because this part of the arm is sufficiently strong to hold the weight of a slack body.The position of the crucified body may then be described as follows: The feet were joined almost parallel, both transfixed by the same nail at the heels, with the legs adjacent; the knees were doubled, the right knee overlapping the left; the trunk was contorted and seated on a sedile; the upper limbs were stretched out, each stabbed by a nail in the forearm.The victim’s broken legs not only provided crucial evidence for the position on the cross, but they also provide evidence for a Palestinian variation of Roman crucifixion — at least as applied to Jews. Normally, the Romans left the crucified person undisturbed to die slowly of sheer physical exhaustion leading to asphyxia. Jewish tradition required burial on the day of execution. And so, in Palestine (which the Jews called the Land of Israel) the executioner would break the legs of the crucified person in order to hasten his death and thus permit burial before nightfall. This practice, described in the gospels in reference to the 2 thieves who were crucified with Jesus (John 19), has now been archaeologically confirmed. Since the victim we excavated was a Jew, we may conclude that the executioners broke his legs on purpose in order to accelerate his death and allow his family to bury him before nightfall in accordance with Jewish custom.