How did the Romans remove the nails from the dead body

[eagle3palms]

HI;

My name is Eugene Keller, I have been trying to find info on "HOW THE ROMANS REMOVED THE NAILS FROM THE DEAD BODY, WHEN THEY WERE CRUCIFIED". Are there any publications on this subject. I have never seen nor read anything about this.

 

 

 

 

 

i

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[Melvadius]

Personally I wouldn't expect to find very much written on this subject with any degree of authority although there may well be religous sites who debate such points I suspect that physical written evidence from the period may be much harder to find.

 

Even if such records could have survived from Roman times I doubt very much if the Roman's kept written records going into such minutea of detail about which particular tools were used for the task beyond 'a' or 'b' were nailed to a cross/ crucified. Their main concern was probably simply to make a point with the act of crucifiction while treatment of the body afterwards could well have been down to local decisions about when or even if the body would be returned to anyone.

 

As far as removal of nails are concerned; pretty much like in modern carpentry the Romans had pliers and crowbars which could pull nails from wood so they probably used whatever tools were available. Worst case if they didn't want to reuse the crossbar and couldn't get the nails out any other way they had saws, adzes and axes so they could have simply sawn or cut through the crossbar as appropriate and left whoever claimed the body to decide on how to deal with any wood still attached before burial/cremation.

[caldrail]

Would the Romans have bothered themselves particularly with removing nails? I'm not saying they didn't, I haven't the slightest idea about that, but it as a procedure to be carried out without fail after each and every crucifixion, it seems a little pedantic. Bear in mind that the Romans don't seem to mention iron shortages, or at leat I haven't found any references to one, and if an item is common, easy to get hold of, people generally develop a wasteful attitude.

 

That said, if someone desperate for a few sestercii is going round retrieving nails from crucifixions, I doubt the method was all too important.

 

Of course the body was generally given to the family following that particular death penalty which means it was taken down. I think the issue of nails is overstressed. I note that some researchers point to the fact that in places the human body doesn't readily support the total weight from a nail tacked through an extremity, and that it was more likely the criminal was tied to the cross to support him. The nail was driven in as a means of torture in that case, and removing the body wasn't really a matter of reverence. They might even have seperated the body from the cross with a measure of brute strength.

Edited July 3, 2010 by caldrail

[Klingan]

I think that we need to consider how common crucifixion really was, even thou I must admit that I cannot provide any useful number. I do believe, however, that we tend to overestimate how much it was practised. Anyway, my point is that there wouldn't be any real reason to go out looking for nails, unless they crucified a very large number of people on a daily basis.

[Nephele]

I think that we need to consider how common crucifixion really was...

 

I think that's a good point to consider. There's currently a religious scholar in the news named Gunnar Samuelsson who's even saying that he's been unable to find absolute evidence that Jesus had been crucified.

 

He found very little evidence of crucifixion as a method of execution, though he did find corpses being suspended, people being hanged from trees, and more gruesome methods of execution such as impaling people by the belly or rectum.

 

Considering all the inventive ways that people might devise for torturing others with stakes and crosses, I wouldn't be surprised if using nails were only one of several options.

 

Gunnar Samuelsson is from Sweden

[Klingan]

He found very little evidence of crucifixion as a method of execution, though he did find corpses being suspended, people being hanged from trees, and more gruesome methods of execution such as impaling people by the belly or rectum.

 

Considering all the inventive ways that people might devise for torturing others with stakes and crosses, I wouldn't be surprised if using nails were only one of several options.

 

Gunnar Samuelsson is from Sweden

[caldrail]

I think that's a good point to consider. There's currently a religious scholar in the news named Gunnar Samuelsson who's even saying that he's been unable to find absolute evidence that Jesus had been crucified.

 

He found very little evidence of crucifixion as a method of execution, though he did find corpses being suspended, people being hanged from trees, and more gruesome methods of execution such as impaling people by the belly or rectum.

 

Considering all the inventive ways that people might devise for torturing others with stakes and crosses, I wouldn't be surprised if using nails were only one of several options.

 

Gunnar Samuelsson is from Sweden

[Maty]

He found very little evidence of crucifixion as a method of execution, though he did find corpses being suspended, people being hanged from trees, and more gruesome methods of execution such as impaling people by the belly or rectum.

 

Are we talking archaeological evidence or reports in the ancient texts? If we are talking about the sources, then there seems plenty of evidence -not only the Gospels, but also reports from Josephus, Plutarch, Cicero and others. In fact it would seem that crucifixion was a standard punishment for certain types of crime such as banditry or rebellion, probably because it allowed the condemned to be publicly displayed for some time as a warning to others.

 

If we are talking archaeological evidence, the question is what one is expecting to find. Given that nails rust and wood decays, I'd guess we'd be looking at bones in the extremities damaged by nails. And no, there'd be little evidence of that.

[Gromit]

HI;

My name is Eugene Keller, I have been trying to find info on "HOW THE ROMANS REMOVED THE NAILS FROM THE DEAD BODY, WHEN THEY WERE CRUCIFIED". Are there any publications on this subject. I have never seen nor read anything about this.

 

 

 

 

 

There is precious little detail as to how crucifixions were performed in Roman times, and I've never seen anything about HOW the nails were removed from dead bodies. I have read references to the use of crucifixion nails as healing amulets, so someone had to be collecting them, but at the same time, we read that bodies were left on the cross to rot as a further humiliation of the victim even after he or she was dead. Some of the characters in Plautus' plays talk about crucified victims as being food for crows, which may confirm that. They also tend to curse each other by saying "abi in malem crucem," literally "go to the bad cross," which may indicate that crucifixions were all too common and familiar.

 

And although the common wisdom today is that victims could have been tied, rather than nailed, to the cross, there is absolutely no evidence in any classical sources that I've seen that anything other than nails were used. Josephus relates that up to 500 Jews per day were crucified during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and that the Roman soldiers would nail them up in various ways "by way of jest." Plautus mentions that "four nails were used" to crucify victims. But nowhere is there mention of tying victims to crosses. So crucifixion must have been common and four nails were generally used, so there must have been quite a few of them around.

 

Someone asked me a similar question a few years ago. He was writing a story, and in one scene some of his characters were removing a loved one's body from a cross. With nails the size the Romans would have used, nothing less than a crowbar, and a big one, would have served to give enough leverage to extract them from a timber. The problem then is having a solid fulcrum point to lever against - the victim's feet and hands would have been in the way. So you'd need a wood block or something similar to rest the crowbar on while pulling. If you did that, I believe that the nails would pull out of the wood but remain embedded in the victim, so extracting them from flesh and bone would be another, maybe more difficult challenge.

 

There is the example of the heelbone with a nail through it that was found at Giv'at Ha-Mivtar in Israel in the 60s, which has been popularized as part of the remains of a crucifixion victim, although I disagree - it's just a heelbone with a nail through it. We can't say with certainty how it came to be that way. If the person were crucified, then this is an example of one of those nails that was too difficult to remove. See this link for more information on that: Crucifixion in Antiquity - Zias

 

Josephus does mention that three of his acquaintances were crucified at Thecoa, near Jerusalem, in 70 AD, and he prevailed on Titus to have them taken down. One of them survived. So we do have a case of victims being taken down from the cross, just not dead ones.

 

 

Gromit