It is one of the most widespread and recognizable religious symbols in the world: the anguished figure of a man, naked but for a loincloth and crown of thorns, hands and feet brutally nailed to a wooden cross. The crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth in 33 C.E. is perhaps the single most famous and consequential act of capital punishment, spawning the world’s largest religion and forever changing the course of human history. Yet, despite its sheer ubiquity in Christian iconography, there is something rather abstract about the practice of crucifixion, for unlike in other forms of execution such as hanging or beheading, the cause of death is not immediately obvious. Does the victim simply die of thirst and exposure, or is some other mechanism at play? And who first came up with this cruel and agonizing form of punishment? Let’s find out as we dive into the strange and barbaric history of crucifixion.

Though the exact person to think up crucifixion is unknown, it is thought to have originated with the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians, who likely developed it from the even older pleasant practice of impalement. Among the earliest written descriptions of crucifixion comes from Greek historian Herodotus, who recounted an incident from the reign of Persian emperor Darius I. In 519 B.C.E., a neighbouring monarch named Arakha declared himself emperor Nebuchadnezzar IV and captured the key city of Babylon – just outside modern-day Baghdad in Iraq. In response, Darius sent his top general, Intaphrenes, to recapture the city. When Babylon fell with little resistance, Darius had Arakha and 3,000 of his followers crucified for their defiance.

From Mesopotamia and Persia, the practice spread across the Mediterranean, likely carried by Alexander the Great during his wars of conquest. To varying extents, crucifixion was practiced by the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Phoenicians, though the most prolific early practitioners were the Carthaginians – Phoenicians who settled in what is now Tunisia in North Africa. The Carthaginians used crucifixion not only as punishment but also a form of ritual sacrifice. For example, 6th Century B.C.E. general Malchus crucified his own son, Cartalo, to the god Baal in return for military victory. And during the Second Punic War of 218-201 B.C.E, Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca crucified 500 Roman soldiers captured in battle. This act likely inspired the Romans to adopt crucifixion for themselves because, sure, why not?

Indeed, while the Romans may not have invented crucifixion, they arguably perfected it, turning it into a truly horrific and degrading form of punishment reserved for only the lowest of the low in Roman society, such as slaves, foreigners, Christians, and political agitators – so degrading, in fact, that anyone who could prove Roman citizenship could opt for a different form of capital punishment, such as beheading. And according to writer and philosopher Cicero, it was even considered unacceptable to present a Roman citizen with the mere image of a cross. Aside from the execution of Jesus, and note after this video see our video: Is There Any Actual Hard Evidence Jesus Existed?, perhaps the most famous act of crucifixion took place in 71 BCE in the wake of the Third Servile War, when 100,000 slaves led by the gladiator Spartacus rebelled against the Roman government. Following the uprising’s defeat at the hands of Marcus Licinius Crassus and his legions, some 6,000 rebels were crucified along the Appian Way as a dire warning to any future would-be insurrectionists. However, crucifixion was seldom used in Rome itself, the practice being far more widespread in the outer fringes of the Empire. For example, thousands of Jews – including Jesus – were crucified in Roman Judea between 6 and 132 C.E., while hundreds of participants in British Queen Boudica’s failed uprising in 60 C.E. were executed in this manner. Rome’s enemies also often adopted the practice, with Germanic tribesmen crucifying dozens of Roman tax collectors in AD 28 as an act of defiance.

In the early days of Roman crucifixion, the condemned was simply hung from a tree or plain vertical pole called a crux simplex and left to die of exposure and dehydration. Over time, however, the Romans developed an elaborate ritual designed to inflict upon the victim the maximum amount of pain, suffering, and humiliation – indeed, the modern word excruciating comes from the Latin ex crucio – “from the cross.” First, the victim was stripped naked save for a loincloth and scourged across the back, buttocks, and upper legs with a whip known as a flagellum or flagrum, whose leather thongs were fitted with metal balls and bone tips to inflict even greater damage. Only a few classes of citizens were spared this initial punishment, including women, senators, and soldiers – though not, in the latter case, for the crime of desertion. On some occasions the victim would be subjected to further mutilation, such as having their tongue or eyes cut out.

The victim would then be forced to carry the implement of their demise to the site of execution, their path lined with jeering onlookers for maximum humiliation. Unlike what is usually depicted in the christian art, however, the victim would not carry the entire cross but rather just the crossbar or patibulum, the vertical post or stipes being permanently fixed in the ground and reused for multiple crucifixions. Nonetheless, this would have weighed up to 60 kilograms – quite the burden for the already-weakened victim. Ever creative, the Romans actually developed several different styles of crosses, with the familiar T-shaped Tau or Latin cross being known as the crux immissa. There was also the crux commissa, which was Y-shaped, and the crux decussata, which was X-shaped. There were also standard heights of crosses, the shorter model known as the crux sublimes and the shorter the crux humilis.

Arriving at the site of execution, the victim would then be tied – and often nailed – to the patibulum before being hoisted onto the stipes. Here again the traditional Christian depictions of crucifixion are slightly inaccurate, for nails driven through the palm would too easily be torn out by the victim’s weight. Instead, the nails were driven through the much stronger tissue and bones of the wrists. Once suspended from the cross, the victim’s buttocks would often be supported by a simple wooden seat known as a sedile or sedicula, and – less frequently – their feet by a block known as a suppedanum. If the feet were nailed to the cross, this would be done through the bones of the heel, which would not only prevent the nails from tearing free, but also inflict even more agony. Finally, a wooden panel called a titulus would be affixed to the cross, inscribed with the victim’s name and the nature of their crime. In the case of Jesus, the titulus famously bore the words Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum – “Jesus the Nazarene King of the Jews.” And, as in the case of Jesus, crucifixions were seldom carried out alone, with the Romans typically grouping several victims together as a form of spectacle. A contingent of soldiers was also posted at the execution site, forbidden to leave their posts until the condemned had breathed their last.

Death by crucifixion usually took between 2-3 days, though this was often hastened by the attending soldiers for obvious reasons. Common methods of accelerating death included breaking the victim’s legs – a practice known as crurifragium – stabbing them in the chest with a spear, striking a hard blow to the chest, or lighting a smoky fire beneath the cross to asphyxiate them. But absent such interventions, how do victims of crucifixion actually die?

The answer is complicated, as there are many potential mechanisms at work. Firstly, the scourging inflicted prior to crucifixion – in addition to the nails driven through the hands and feet – would have resulted in significant blood loss and hypovolaemic shock. This, combined with severe dehydration from being exposed to the elements without water, would be enough to kill the victim within a day or two. However, there was another, more insidious process at work. Suspension in this way would cause the victim’s body weight to push down on the diaphragm, making it very difficult for them to breathe out. With their shoulders likely dislocated, the only way for the victim to gain any reprieve would be to push up against their feet to relieve the pressure on their chest. But as the hours wore on, the victim would become ever more exhausted, until they finally became too weak to support themselves. And even this small reprieve was only possible if the victim’s feet were nailed to the cross or supported by a suppedanum; if their legs were unsupported or broken via crurifragium, there was no way to delay what happened next. Unable to exhale, the victim’s lungs – and consequently their bloodstream – would quickly become saturated with carbon dioxide, triggering an excruciating urge to breathe and causing the heart to beat faster to circulate the remaining oxygen around the body. Meanwhile, rising carbonic acid in the blood would begin to damage the capillaries, causing them to leak plasma and leading to a buildup of fluid around the heart and lungs – AKA pericardial and pleural effusion. Indeed, the gospels claim that when the Roman soldier Longinus pierced Jesus’s side with a spear to ensure he was dead, the wound oozed both blood and water – a phenomenon consistent with such a fluid buildup. Eventually, the combination of respiratory collapse and hypovolaemic shock would cause the heart to fail, leading to death by cardiac arrest.

The speed at which these effects set in is attested to by experiments performed by German radiologist Hermann Mödder, who in the 1940s hung volunteer medical students from crosses – mercifully with leather straps instead of nails – and monitored their vital signs. Within only six minutes, the students’ tidal volume – that is, the volume of air moved in and out of their lungs – decreased by 70%, while their blood pressure halved and heart rate doubled. And within 12 minutes they began to pass out. If, on the other hand, the students were allowed to support their weight for 20 seconds at a time, their condition improved significantly – and you thought your university program was torture!

Though the experiments only lasted 30-40 minutes due to wrist pain, Mödder concluded that the average crucifixion victim would last only 3-6 hours before suffering complete cardiopulmonary collapse. This suggests that supports like the sedile and suppedanum were deliberately added to prolong the victim’s suffering, and explains why the breaking of the legs via crurifragium so swiftly led to death. Alternatively, the breaking of large bones like the femur could have induced massive internal bleeding or fat embolization – that is, the release of fat globules from the bone marrow into the blood, which could block blood vessels and lead to cardiac arrest.

Yet this would likely have been little comfort for the average crucifixion victim, for the agonizing combination of dislocated shoulders, nails driven through the wrist and ankles, deep wounds from flagellation, and severe dehydration would have made even six hours seem like weeks. Occasionally, the Romans would crucify victims upside-down, as in the case of Jesus’ disciple St. Peter. While this was considered by far the most degrading form of crucifixion, mercifully the flow of blood to the victim’s head would quickly lead to unconsciousness, making the whole ordeal less physically – if not socially – excruciating.

After more than 500 years of refinement and use, crucifixion was finally abolished in Rome in 315 C.E. by Constantine, the first Christian emperor. However, crucifixion continued to be practiced intermittently over the next two millennia, with France in the Middle Ages often reserving the punishment for Jews and Heretics. Crucifixion was also used in feudal Japan into the early 19th Century, though with a twist: once the victim was fixed to the cross, the executioner would strategically shoot arrows at them to inflict a slow, agonizing death. Such is the brutality and humiliation associated with crucifixion that cases of the practice in modern times seldom fail to shock and enrage. For instance, in April 1915, it was reported that a Canadian soldier had been found near the Belgian town of Ypres, crucified to a barn door with German bayonets. The incident caused outrage in Canada and the other Entente powers, and was seized upon by propagandists as evidence of German barbarism and depravity. Despite this however, no concrete evidence of this incident has ever been found, meaning it was likely just a battlefield rumour or a deliberately crafted piece of black propaganda. In more recent years, crucifixion has been carried out by islamic militant groups like Al Qaeda and ISIL in Sudan and Iraq, and by the Saudi Arabian government – though in the latter case it is used as a form of gibbeting, in which the victim first being executed by beheading before having their body displayed on a cross as a warning to others.

Yet despite its apparent ubiquity, surprisingly little physical evidence remains of crucifixion in biblical times. This is likely due to the fact that crucifixion victims were usually cremated after execution, leaving few remains. However, in June 1968, construction workers in Jerusalem accidentally unearthed a number of tombs dating from the first Century C.E. Of the skeletons discovered in the tomb, one – identified as Yehohanan son of Chaggol – had a large nail driven through its heel bones – the first concrete evidence of Roman crucifixion ever discovered. What’s more, the skeleton revealed hitherto unknown details of Roman crucifixion methods. For example, no evidence was found of nails being driven through the wrists, indicating that Yehohanan was simply tied to the cross with ropes or leather thongs. Also, both heels showed evidence of penetration, leading archaeologists to speculate that Yehohanan’s feet had been nailed together to the cross in an awkward – and likely very painful – bent-leg posture. However, it was later realized that the nail discovered with the skeleton was too short to have penetrated both feet and the cross, meaning Yeohanan’s feet were instead nailed to either side of the stipes or upright. Still, much remains unknown about this ancient practice, for since 1968 only three other skeletons have been unearthed showing possible signs of crucifixion: one in Mendes, Egypt, one in La Larda, Italy, and one in Cambridgeshire, England.

And that is a brief and brutal history of the ancient and infamous practice of crucifixion. Let us know in the comments what you thought of our summary. Hopefully we nailed it.

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