To speed death, executioners would often break the legs of their victims to give no chance of using their thigh muscles as support. It was probably unnecessary, as their strength would not have lasted more than a few minutes even if they were unharmed.
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.
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.
The collapsing lungs, failing heart, dehydration, and the inability to get sufficient oxygen to the tissues essentially suffocate the victim.
Probably among the most painful deaths you can experience if done right. You would have large nails(about 5–7 inches I've heard) hammered into your heel bone and wrists.
Death by crucifixion now begins. As Jesus slowly sags down with the weight of His body on the nails through His wrists, excruciating, fiery pain shoots along the most sensitive nerve endings in the body – called the median nerves – and travels along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain.
Death, usually after 6 hours--4 days, was due to multifactorial pathology: after-effects of compulsory scourging and maiming, haemorrhage and dehydration causing hypovolaemic shock and pain, but the most important factor was progressive asphyxia caused by impairment of respiratory movement.
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!)
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.
Crucifixion lasted from 6 hours to 4 days. It was preceded by a brutal scourging. A Roman soldier would strike the victim 39 times with a whip whose leather straps were laced with slivers of sharp bones and small metal balls that severely cut into the body, exposing bones and internal organs.
3rd Word From the Cross: 'Behold Your Son; Behold Your Mother'| National Catholic Register.
She takes on Pilate's guilt for his execution of Jesus and he executes her as well, in a scene in which she is baptized in blood and made a martyr.
The point of crucifixion is a slow agonizing death. The way JWs say Jesus died, with his hands over his head, he would only have survived a few hours at the most. Maybe 1 or 2 hours.
During Caesar's era, the romans had these massive tower shields which they'd use to cover one side of their body, so a greave wasn't required on the part of the body covered by the shield. Some soldiers wore one (on the shield side) or two greaves (shin protectors) and others wore bracers on the forearm.
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.
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.
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 new analysis suggests the nails were lost from the tomb of the Jewish high priest Caiaphas, who reportedly handed Jesus over to the Romans for execution. Slivers of wood and bone fragments suggest they may have been used in a crucifixion.
These witnesses to the resurrected Jesus include the Apostle Peter, James the brother of Jesus, and, most intriguingly, a group of more than 500 people at the same time. Many scholars believe that Paul here is quoting from a much earlier Christian creed, which perhaps originated only a few years after Jesus' death.
Jose Maria Ribas Alba says that Jesus's trial and punishment were consistent with other contemporary cases, and that the “criminal proceedings against him were legal,” the New York Daily News reports.
Crucifixions have been relegated to history in much of the world, but they still happen elsewhere. Saudi Arabia seems to lead the world in crucifixions these days, occasionally applying the penalty to rapists and other serious offenders.
Luke 23:45b-46: And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" And having said this he breathed his last.
After the Ascension of Jesus
Her death is not recorded in the scriptures, but Orthodox tradition, tolerated also by Catholics, has her first dying a natural death, known as the Dormition of Mary, and then, soon after, her body itself also being assumed (taken bodily) into Heaven.
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.