The feet were nailed to the upright part of the crucifix, so that the knees were bent at around 45 degrees. To speed death, executioners would often break the legs of their victims to give no chance of using their thigh muscles as support.
Frequently, the legs of the person executed were broken or shattered with an iron club, an act called crurifragium, which was also frequently applied without crucifixion to slaves. This act hastened the death of the person but was also meant to deter those who observed the crucifixion from committing offenses.
The collapsing lungs, failing heart, dehydration, and the inability to get sufficient oxygen to the tissues essentially suffocate the victim.
Being sentenced to die on the cross was the most brutal form of punishment ever devised. Based on its agonizing effects to the victim, crucifixion was much more painful and longer lasting than hanging, electrocution, gas chamber, firing squad, and lethal injection.
The attending Roman guards could only leave the site after the victim had died, and were known to precipitate death by means of deliberate fracturing of the tibia and/or fibula, spear stab wounds into the heart, sharp blows to the front of the chest, or a smoking fire built at the foot of the cross to asphyxiate the ...
Apparently there is only one extant account (in Josephus) of one person surviving crucifixion out of the hundreds reported in ancient literature. (And that case was only when excellent medical care was immediately provided by the Romans, and even so, only one out of three who were so rescued actually survived!)
Some would argue that only ropes were employed in crucifixion. 2 Others, like Hengel, state that nails were almost always used, and ropes were the exception3—the majority of scholars fall some- where in between.
Someone nailed to a crucifix with their arms stretched out on either side could expect to live for no more than 24 hours. Seven-inch nails would be driven through the wrists so that the bones there could support the body's weight.
The exact number of the Holy Nails has been a matter of speculation for centuries. The general modern understanding in the Catholic Church is that Christ was crucified with four nails, but three are sometimes depicted as a symbolic reference to the Holy Trinity.
In 1870, French architect Charles Rohault de Fleury catalogued all known fragments of the true cross. He determined the Jesus cross weighed 165 pounds, was three or four meters high, with a cross beam two meters wide.
Contemporary sources tell us that so many men were crucified—about 6,000—that crosses lined the road from Rome to Capua.
Jesus was nailed to the cross at 9 in the morning, and He died at about 3 in the afternoon. Therefore, Jesus spent about 6 hours on the cross. As a side note, the Romans of Jesus' day were especially adept at stretching out their torture methods for as long as possible.
Added to what Jesus had already suffered from being beaten and flogged, the crown of thorns would have caused an almost indescribable pain as Jesus labored, with a heavy cross on His back and crown of thorns on His head, through the streets of Jerusalem to the place where He was ultimately crucified.
The case of Jehohanan told archaeologists several things: The feet of crucifixion victims really were nailed to crosses, and the fact that the hand bones showed no similar signs of damage indicated that the victims' hands were not necessarily nailed.
In Christian tradition, nailing the limbs to the wood of the cross is assumed, with debate centring on whether nails would pierce hands or the more structurally sound wrists. But Romans did not always nail crucifixion victims to their crosses, and instead sometimes tied them in place with rope.
Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other.
Prior to the Seventh Crusade, Louis IX of France bought from Baldwin II of Constantinople what was venerated as Jesus' Crown of Thorns. It is kept in Paris to this day, in the Louvre Museum.
Nails reportedly linked to the crucifixion of Jesus have fragments of ancient bone and wood embedded in them, a new study has revealed. The nails were allegedly found in Jerusalem, in a first-century burial cave believed to be the resting place of Caiaphas, the Jewish priest who sent Jesus to his death in the Bible.
The two nails were found in the cave of Caiaphas in the Peace Forest of Jerusalem. One was found in oneossuary, which bears the name of Caiaphas and the other in a second ossuary without inscription.
Crucifixion was a punishment that was very public and painful to discourage others to commit the crime, so it was reserved for slaves, pirates and enemies to the state. If a slave killed their master all the slaves that belonged to the victim would be crucified, which could include children.
After 40 days, Jesus ascended into heaven.
Greco-Roman texts show that in certain cases the bodies of the crucified were left to decompose in place. In other cases, the crucified bodies were buried.
He may have stood about 5-ft.-5-in. (166 cm) tall, the average man's height at the time.
This also relates to the height of the cross, where estimates vary from 8 feet (2.4 m) to 15 feet (4.6 m) in height.
Eastern Christianity
According to the sacred tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church the True Cross was made from three different types of wood: cedar, pine and cypress.