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Crucifixion is an ancient method of execution, in which the victim was tied or nailed to a large wooden cross ( Latin: crux) and left to hang there until dead. Crucifixion has gained notoriety in the Christian world due to the fact that this was the method used by the Romans to put Jesus to death. As a result, the cross has become the primary symbol of Christianity. (See Christian cross.)
Crucifixion was hardly (if ever) performed for ritual or symbolic reasons; usually, its purpose was only to provide a particularly painful, gruesome, and public death, using whatever means were most expedient for that goal. In fact, crucifixion is only an arbitrary subset of a much wider continuous spectrum of slow and painful execution methods, which include varied forms of impalement, hanging from hooks, burning at the stake, exposure to wild beasts, etc.
Therefore, the details of crucifixion must have varied considerably with location and epoch, and even from case to case; and very little can be said about the practice in general.
The horizontal beam of the cross, or transom, could be fixed at the very top of the vertical piece, the upright, to form a T called a tau cross or Saint Anthony's cross. The horizontal beam could also be affixed at some distance below the top, often in a mortise, to form a t-shape called a Latin cross, most often depicted in Christian imagery. Alternatively, the cross could consist of two diagonal beams to form an X alternatively known as the decussate cross (after 'decus', Latin for 'ten', insofar as 'X' is the Roman numeral for ten) or as Saint Andrew's cross. (This shape may be recognized from its blue-on-white manifestation in the flag of Scotland.)
A single, vertical wooden stake with no transom at all has also been cited; this is how (since 1929) Jehovah's Witnesses typically describe the device on which Jesus was crucified. They feel this is logical, as the Gospel accounts refer to the breaking of the crucified victim's legs to hasten death; the research of Frederick Zugibe (see below) indicated that a person suspended by the arms from a crosspiece would not asphyxiate with leg support removed; therefore the position indicated by crux simplex, illustrated by Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) in his book De cruce libri tres, Antwerp, 1629, p. 19, seems more accurate. Crucifixion in this position, with hands affixed over one's head, would in fact precipitate asphyxiation rapidly once the legs were broken. Additionally, it is evident that a simple upright stake was more generally used for ancient crucifixions, for reasons of simplicity.
The fact that cross-like images have been used in pagan religions from times of ancient antiquity as phallic symbols (eg. the Egyptian ankh) is as well abhorrent to some Christian groups, who do not use such images or symbols in their worship.
For the sake of expediency, the victim was probably affixed to the cross by ropes, nails, or some combination of the two. In popular depictions of crucifixion (possibly derived from a literal reading of the translated description in the Gospel of JohnThe Gospel of John is the fourth gospel in the usual sequence of the canon as printed in the New Testament, and most agree it was the fourth to be written. Like the other three gospels, it contains an account of the life of Jesus. The Gospel of John is th, of Jesus' wounds being "in the hands"), the victim is shown supported only by nails driven straight through the feet and the palms of the hands. However, the flesh of the hands cannot support a person's body weight, so some other means must have been used to support most of the weight, such as tying the wrists to the cross beam.
Another possibility, that does not require tying, is that the nails were inserted just above the wrist, between the two bones of the forearm (the radiusThe radius is the bone of the forearm that extends from the inside of the elbow to the thumb side of the wrist. The radius is situated on the lateral side of the ulna, which exceeds it in length and size. Its upper end is small, and forms only a small par and the ulnaThe ulna (along with the radius) is one of the two bones in the forearm. In the anatomical position, it is medial to the radius . The ulna articulates with: the humerus, at the elbow as a hinge joint. the radius, near the elbow as a pivot joint this allow). The nails could also be driven through the wrist, in a space between four carpal bones (which is the location shown in the Shroud of TurinThe Shroud of Turin is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have been physically traumatized in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is presently kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy.). As some historians have suggested, the Gospel words that are translated as "hands" may have in fact included everything below the mid-forearm. Another possibility, suggested by Frederick Zugibe, is that the nails may have been driven in on an angle, entering in the palm in the crease that delineates the bulky region at the base of the thumb, and exiting in the wrist, passing through the carpal tunnel.