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Roman Crucifixion Research

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I've added some new articles. Please let me know if I'm missing things or getting things wrong.
Thank you very much for your effort! Have you read this book? If not, it's highly recommended... and not by my humble self only. :)

There are certain details that should be corrected. For example,

I can only think of 3.5 people who were crucified and whose names we know. (Please tell me in the comments if you can think of more.) One-and-a-half of them are women. (I’ll explain.) Jesus Christ is the most famous, of course, followed by Spartacus.

Cook has a few more names, but not Spartacus, who according to all ancient sources was killed in action during the last battle of the servile war. There's always a question of where to draw a line -- was Laureolus, who 'hanging on no false cross, gave up his defenceless entrails to a Scottish bear' (Martial), crucified or given to the beasts?

On nudity.
In any case, it is unlikely anyone on their way to be crucified anywhere outside of Judea wore clothes.

Unlikely (and certainly not an idea I like :devil:) but not improbable. The ass-headed cruciarius in the Palatine graffito wears a kind of short tunic. For what it's worth, the Emperor Hadrian forbade the executioners to profit from the rags of the condemned.
 
Thank you. Yes, I would say there is nothing implausible about using a removable piece of wood to nail the feet. But because it comes purely from a "thought experiment," and no actual evidence, I'm reluctant to say we have any reason to believe the Romans used it. My reason for believing that any such piece of wood did NOT provide "rest" or a place to stand is that ancient references to crucifixion describe the person as "hanging" or sometimes "sitting" on the cross. Standing on a footrest doesn't seem to fit that description.
Admittedly, securing the feet by any means arguably serves to prolong the agony, although it does reduce the risk of being kicked in the face for the executioners.
Theoretically, hanging the condemned with unrestrained feet is just one possible option. ;)
 
Have you read this book? If not, it's highly recommended... and not by my humble self only. :)
I plan to read it shortly.
The ass-headed cruciarius in the Palatine graffito wears a kind of short tunic.
I'm suspicious of that supposed tunic. It's a very crude drawing, and the naked buttocks appear clearer to me than the tunic. It seems to me the supposed hemline could easily be a sedile.
For what it's worth, the Emperor Hadrian forbade the executioners to profit from the rags of the condemned.
Very interesting. It actually seems to support the claim that the condemned were stripped of their rags, at least up until the time of Hadrian, assuming his decree was obeyed consistently and maintained after his death.
 
I've added a new post about the sedile and cornu. Look forward to feedback.

(If you really want to help me out, you could search for my site using a search engine and get to it that way. It will help it get listed higher.)

Thanks to all.
 
He had talked to me in private messaging about feeling guilty about the whole thing. I won't go into any further detail, to respect his privacy and wishes. Still, I'm upset that he pulled all of his fantastic writing and research before it could be widely appreciated
 
People have mentioned the apparently encyclopedic book by Cook (with illustrations of ancient graffiti).
There is this article from an apparently feminist professor at Notre Dame (a Catholic university in the United States) with references.
I have posted a translation of Josephus' story about Ida and the Priests of Isis during the reign of Tiberius in my Trier 243AD thread (Jewish Antiquities, XVIII 65-80).
Barring further archeological evidence (which does appear from time to time), there is apparently only so much source material and one can only go so far. That doesn't stop "biblical scholars" from coming out with new conjectures, and it doesn't stop historians of the American old west from writing new biographies of, say, Crazy Horse, the Sioux warrior who lead the fight against Custer at the Little Bighorn. (There isn't even an authenticated photograph of Crazy Horse. Apparently he was worried that the camera would extract his soul.) So I am afraid that eventually we will all just be recycling the same material.
 
What is the fastest way to kill someone by crucifixion? I would nail the wrists to the crossbeam and then erect the cross. In this way the body has no support an the person hangs with free feet. For some reason, the muscles that are necessary for breathing no longer function if a person hangs free for a while, , so I have read. Does anyone know how long this lasts? As far as I know, the support of the feet serves to prolong the dying process.
 
Well, the muscles involved in breathing still function, its just that only the diaphragm works in that pose, and it doesn't work as efficiently as normal in the stretched position, giving you only its partial strength. And once it is worn out you will start to breath much shallower. It's still a slow process, just happening over the course of hours, not days.

And the website is back up y'all! Kindly given to new management, but with all of the original articles preserved. I will gladly take further suggestions for topics we can cover.
 
Well, the muscles involved in breathing still function, its just that only the diaphragm works in that pose, and it doesn't work as efficiently as normal in the stretched position, giving you only its partial strength. And once it is worn out you will start to breath much shallower. It's still a slow process, just happening over the course of hours, not days.

And the website is back up y'all! Kindly given to new management, but with all of the original articles preserved. I will gladly take further suggestions for topics we can cover.
Nice to see the blog is a 'going concern' -- I suggest the subjects of cornua and the perennial 'who were the executioners?' for the forthcoming posts.
 
In the second world war the method of suspending people at the wrist was done in Dachau.
Ropes were used. arms were almost vertical stretching the chest at maximum
most victims died in the half hour range.
 
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