Is this how Jesus died? Archeologists find rare remains of Roman crucifixion

Is this how Jesus died? Archeologists find rare remains of Roman crucifixion June 5, 2018

Fascinating: 

The body of a man buried in northern Italy 2,000 years ago shows signs that he died after being nailed to a wooden cross, the method used for the execution of Jesus described in the Christian Bible.

Although crucifixion was a common form of capital punishment for criminals and slaves in ancient Roman times, the new finding is only the second time that direct archaeological evidence of it has been found.

A new study of the skeletal remains of the man, found near Venice in 2007, reveals a lesion and unhealed fracture on one of the heel bones that suggests his feet had been nailed to a cross.

…In their research paper, [author Emanuela] Gualdi and her colleagues noted that the Romans had learned of crucifixion from the Carthaginians and used it as a form of capital punishment for almost a thousand years, until Emperor Constantine banned it in the fourth century A.D.

Roman crucifixions were designed to cause maximum pain for a prolonged period — victims’ feet and wrists were usually nailed to a wooden cross, which would hold them upright while they suffered a slow and agonizing death, often taking several days, the researchers said.

As such, it was usually carried out only for the execution of slaves in Roman society, the researchers said; the bodies were often left on the cross to rot or to be eaten by animals, but in some cases, they were removed and buried.

…The only other time that the remains of a crucifixion victim have been found was in 1968, during an excavation of Roman-era tombs in Jerusalem. In those excavations, Greek archaeologist Vassilios Tzaferis found that a 7-inch-long (18 centimeters) nail had been driven through the heel bone of a man found in one of the tombs.

The nail was found in place within the bone, attached to a small piece of olive wood — part of the wooden cross where the man had been hung to die.

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