Summary: A rare 1,900-year-old skeleton found in the UK with an iron nail pierced through the heel bone provides archeological evidence for Roman crucifixion.
Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” A third time he said to them, “Why? What evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.” But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. – Luke 23:20-24 (ESV)
Rare Formal Burial of a Crucified Man
Rare archeological evidence for crucifixion was found in the UK, as required excavations took place in preparation for a new housing development. The dig was conducted by Albion Archaeology in 2017 but because of delays from the Covid-19 pandemic, results were not published until the end of last year in the magazine British Archaeology.
A 1,900-year-old skeleton with a two-inch iron nail driven through the right heel bone was found in an ancient, previously unknown, Roman settlement in Fenstanton, near the famous university town of Cambridge, 73 miles north of London.
Archeologists discovered five small cemeteries with the remains of 45 bodies, 40 adults and 5 children. Among them was the skeleton of a man, 25 to 35 years old, measuring about 5‘7”, with a nail in his ankle. Twelve other nails were found around the man, most likely from the structure, possibly a bier, that he was buried in. Radiocarbon testing dated the man’s bones to between AD 130 – AD 360. The man’s lower legs showed signs of arthritis and thinning, possibly caused by infection, inflammation or irritation from being bound or shackled, suggesting to archeologists he was a slave. The man was not genetically related to any of the other bodies found on the site according to DNA analysis. He was from the native population.
“The scale of remains at the site indicates a previously unknown Roman roadside village. Other finds include unusual evidence for industrial processing of cattle bones, perhaps for cosmetics and soap; an enameled copper-alloy horse-and-rider brooch and other copper-alloy items suggesting there may have been a temple or shrine nearby; and a rare “bustum” burial, where pyre and human remains were buried together at the cremation site,” said David Ingham, leader of the dig and project manager at Albion Archeology.
“It stunned us, slightly,” Ingham said. The nail wasn’t found until the bones were being washed in the laboratory. “It’s the first time a skeleton has been excavated that anyone has found a nail in, so it’s not the sort of thing you’re looking for.” Crucifixion was ascertained to be the only likely explanation.
“We know a reasonable amount about crucifixion; how it was practiced and where it was practiced and when and so on from historical accounts. But it’s the first tangible evidence to actually see how it worked,” continued Ingham.
Crucifixion and the Roman Empire
Most people associate Jesus Christ of the New Testament with crucifixion but this form of execution wasn’t limited to Rome. Centuries before the Roman Empire the Persians practiced it. Crucifixion was also common among the Hellenistic Greeks, Carthaginians and even in Medieval Japan. But this barbaric practice became associated closely with the Romans because of how expansive Rome became, how long the empire lasted and the famous story of Pilate and the crucifixion of Jesus in the Gospels.
It is estimated that the Romans executed about 100,000 to 150,000 people by crucifixion. After the revolt by Spartacus, Rome crucified some 6,000 slaves along the Appian Way. The future Emperor Titus, conquered Jerusalem in the Jewish War of AD 70 and punished captured Jews by crucifying them. Finally, in AD 337, Emperor Constantine outlawed the barbaric practice after converting to Christianity.
Crucifixion was a particularly slow and painful way to die where the victim would usually die of asphyxiation. Rome used it as a public spectacle to humiliate criminals and also scare anyone else from going against Rome. The victim’s feet were most likely “positioned on either side of the cross’s upright post, the feet fastened by horizontal nails through the heels,” Ingham and Corinne Duhig, an archeologist and human bone specialist from the University of Cambridge, wrote in the British Archeology article.
“Everyone knows about crucifixion through Christianity,” Ingham said. “What people don’t necessarily realize is that there were lots of different ways in which the Romans crucified people. So it’s not just the classic image, up on the cross, arms out, spread, feet together.” Sometimes people were tied rather than nailed to the cross.
“It was relatively common, but it was still reserved for the most serious crimes. Crimes that threaten the state, particularly sedition, witchcraft, that sort of thing,” Ingham said, adding, “These were people who had seriously fallen out of favor with the state, to the extent that they’d been crucified.”
Extremely Rare and Important Find
Finds like this are extremely rare. Usually the nails used for crucifixion were taken out and reused. Also it is rare for a crucified victim to receive a formal burial.
“The remarkable fact about this skeleton is not that the man was crucified, but that his body was reclaimed after death and given a formal burial alongside others, leaving us with this extremely rare evidence of what had happened to him,” Albion Archeology said.
“This is an extraordinarily important find, because it is only the second discovery of a crucifixion victim from Roman times,” explained John Granger Cook, a professor at LaGrange College in Georgia and the author of Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World.
“The lucky combination of good preservation and the nail being left in the bone has allowed me to examine this almost unique example when so many thousands have been lost,” said Corinne Duhig. “This shows that the inhabitants of even this small settlement at the edge of the empire could not avoid Rome’s most barbaric punishment.”
Previous to this discovery, archeologists had only found one other example of a crucifixion nail still in the bone, in north Jerusalem in 1968. Two other bodies have been found in Italy and Egypt with no direct evidence of a nail but with highly suspicious holes in their heels.
Rome’s Far Reach
During its peak size in AD 117 under the reign of Trajan, the Roman Empire’s population reached between 55-60 million, encompassing an area of about 2 million square miles. Rome’s territory extended far beyond the Mediterranean Sea: north as far as England, east to the Euphrates in Syria, west to Spain and south to Egypt.
This discovery demonstrates the far reach of Rome. “It shows that Roman law was still applied even in the furthest provinces of the empire,” Ingham said, “the extreme west of the empire — in Britain — which was a pretty disturbed place at the time that this person was living, in the third and fourth centuries. There was lots of political upheaval.”
The Roman Empire began in Italy in 31 BC when Augustus Caesar proclaimed himself the first emperor. It came to an end with the fall of Constantinople in AD 1453. It is considered to be the longest lasting empire in history.
Conclusion
The unusual find of a foot with an embedded nail in it gives us one of the first cases of physical verification showing that crucifixion took place in the UK. Even the very northern reaches of the Roman Empire were not far enough away to escape this brutal form of execution. Most of what we know about crucifixion comes from written historical sources but this tangible evidence adds concrete data to our knowledge. The collection of evidence sure keeps us thinking.
TOP PHOTO: Bone with a nail pierced through the ankle. (credit: Albion Archeology)
