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Mistakes in crucifixion reenactment in movies

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Barbarossa1944

Spectator
I have found a mistake in a episode of Xena Warrior Princess serie "When Fates Collide". The wood tablet over the hand that the nail will pierce, have no hole. Anyone work with wood is aware that the tablet will be broken. Is necessary make a hole before. But I appreciate the detail in reenactment. The purpose of tablets were prevent that the hand get free from nail.
 
To my way of thinking, the mistake is showing the wooden pieces at all. There's no way a victim could have pulled a hand or foot off over the big heads of those Roman nails.

The only evidence for this practice is the heelbone with a nail through it that was found in the 1960's at Givat Hamivtar in Israel. It was automatically assumed that this was not only from a crucifixion victim, but that it was representative of standard crucifixion practice. I know, I corresponded with Joe Zias about it myself.

Since then, we've seen this in movies and on TV numerous times, but it is by no means a proven, historical fact that this is the way it was done. It's only someone's assumption.

Regarding the assertion that a thin piece of wood like that would split, you are probably right. When carpenters nail thin pieces of wood like moldings and trim, they often use a trick of turning the nail upside down and striking its point first to blunt it, then turn it over and drive it through the thin piece. The reason is that a blunt point will break the wood fibers rather than spreading them apart, so the piece is not as likely to split.

Roman nails were all handmade so they were not consistent, but all of the big ones I've seen in museums had a point like a chisel rather than a sharp conical point. If the chisel point is turned so that it's across the grain, it will cut the wood fibers rather than spreading them, so if used right it might actually pierce a thin section of wood without splitting it. Depends on the carpenter's skill.


Jedakk
 
My experience, both as a carpenter and as a crucifixion enthusiast, is that the wood pieces are a figment of someone's imagination. Small pieces of wood like that depicted would have to have a hole drilled through them first, or else, yes, they will split, no matter what you do to the nail. There is absolutely no known evidence that these pieces of wood were ever used for crucifixions, and no basis in physics for them to behave as depicted in the photo.

Yehohnan's ankles were nailed to the cross (one of several variations that the Romans would have used, depending on circumstances and desires), and there were microscopic slivers of wood detected on the nails, but the consensus is far from unanimous as to whether the wood came from the cross itself, or a piece of wood between the ankle and the nailhead. All anyone has agreed to is that the wood slivers were from an olive tree, too soft of a wood to generally be used in a crucifixion. Yehohnan, it seems, was crucified during the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, when Josephus tells us that they denuded the entire surrounding area of trees to make thousands of crosses. In such a circumstance, any tree available would have been pressed into service, and that seems to have been the case here.

To be fair, such a piece of wood COULD have been used to prevent the victim wriggling off the nail head, but the nails I have seen seem to have adequately large heads as it is. I feel that the use of pieces of wood like this is largely fiction.
 
just a short offtopic Question

Does someone of you have this movie of gabrielles crux for download?
 
The Knock on Wood

There is no evidence that they did exist, but there is no evidence that they did not exist. Evidence of how people were crucified is very scarce.

Don't know much about Roman nails, but it would seem to me that being suspended from the the nails through the wrists, even wihtout full body weight could rip the entry wound larger and because of blood and various body fluids the wrist could slipout over the nail heads.

I'm using the wood washers in my movie because I am not put off by them, even find them erotic, but more importantly, it lets me get away with more visually and makes it safer too.

There are images showing them used and since my crux fantasy is mostly based on images and scultures, I go with it.

Plus, it makes the carpentry of crucifixion look 'busier.' I like the indifferent attitude of the crucifiers to be like they are doing a carpenter job as much as they are doing an execution.

GR/CT

.
 
The evidence for the use of wooden "washers" comes from that nail embedded in a heel bone found at Givat haMivtar in Israel back in the 1960s. Archeologists speculated that it could be the remains of a crucifixion victim, and analysis indicated traces of olive wood between the nail head and the bone. Several theories and assumptions have been made based on that:
  • First of all that this was a crucifixion victim. What it is, is a heelbone with a nail through it. I wrote to Joe Zias, the most recent archeologist involved with this and asked him how they came to that conclusion. His reply was that there were a lot of people crucified about that time, and maybe this was one of them.

    The second assumption is that there was a thin piece of wood used under the nail head to prevent the victim working his hands or feet off of the nail, and that this was used with all of the nails that held this victim. We only have one nail, so we can't say that with certainty, and 2,000 years later this nail is solidly embedded in the heelbone. How exactly was a victim going to enlarge the wound enough through that bone to slip it over a nail head that was close to an inch in diameter?

    The third assumption is that this victim, if he was indeed crucified, was crucified head-up rather than inverted or some other way. Nailing the heels this way would make much more sense if the victim were hanging by his heels. And maybe the olive wood is just the remains of a titulus.

    The final assumption is that we can extend all of these other assumptions to say that this defines the standard way that people were crucified, i.e. nails through the heelbones and wooden washers used.

In my opinion this is all BS. For a nail to tear a wound open further, it would have to enlarge the hole in the bone, too. It didn't. And I won't even get into the physics of torsion on a nail throught the heels and what that would do. Even if a victim's feet were nailed through the arches, flat against the face of the cross, the shank of the nail would be resting against solid bone, and the only likely way of tearing the wound larger would be for the victim to pull his feet upward, viciously hard. Not such an easy thing to do when you have to be hanging by the wrists to pull your feet up, and pulling up hard means pulling down hard on your wounded wrists, too. Physically possible, but doesn't seem very likely.


Jedakk
 
Marcie4you said:
Although Jedak's status is only spectator, I know him from Crux foundations, and respect him HIGHLY!
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Thanks, Marcie! My status used to be higher here, but I haven't been able to post anything most of the time because of this site being blocked in the country where I worked, and I suppose that caused my status to go down.

Jedakk
 
jedakk said:
Thanks, Marcie! My status used to be higher here, but I haven't been able to post anything most of the time because of this site being blocked in the country where I worked, and I suppose that caused my status to go down.

Jedakk
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You should have a status of your own here. "Crucifier in Chief" comes to mind.
 
jedakk said:
LOL! I retired from my job in Saudi Arabia yesterday after more than 20 years there, so maybe I'll be around more of the time now. :)

Jedakk
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What title would jedakk like ;)? Something historic or SciFi?...Good to hear that now you can spend oodles of time with grandchildren perhaps.
 
melissa said:
What title would jedakk like ;)? Something historic or SciFi?...Good to hear that now you can spend oodles of time with grandchildren perhaps.
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agree

another granddad
 
jedakk said:
Actually, I am a great-granddad now. My grandchildren have children.
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:DI had to wait for that my oldest grandchild is 21 now
 
jedakk said:
LOL! I retired from my job in Saudi Arabia yesterday after more than 20 years there, so maybe I'll be around more of the time now. :)

Jedakk
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Welcome back to civilization, its good to have you hear full time
 
In Mel Gibson's Passion movie one of the thieves (stood on a platform) tweaked his toes. As if it would have been possible!
 
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