Overview
In 1968 contractors building north of Jerusalem opened Jewish rock-cut tombs at Giv'at ha-Mivtar. Vassilios Tzaferis excavated them (IEJ 20, 1970). In one ossuary, inscribed 'Jehohanan son of HGQWL', were the bones of a man in his twenties whose right heel bone was still transfixed by an iron nail.
The nail had entered the side of the heel and its tip had bent back on itself, which Zias reads as the nail having struck a knot in the upright so that it could not be pulled out when the body was taken down. Olive wood lay between the nail head and the bone, read as a small wooden plaque under the nail head.
Nicu Haas's 1970 anatomical report reported the nail as 17-18 cm and reconstructed both heels as fixed by one nail. Zias and Sekeles's 1985 re-examination measured the nail at 11.5 cm, too short to pass through two feet, and found no traumatic injury to the forearms.
In its own words
Jehohanan the son of HGQWLOssuary inscription as rendered by J. Zias, 'Crucifixion in Antiquity: The Evidence' (the patronymic left untranslated)
What the evidence shows
- Right calcaneus penetrated laterally by an iron nail, tip bent back on itself (Zias).
- Nail length 11.5 cm (Zias & Sekeles 1985), not 17-18 cm (Haas 1970).
- Olive-wood remains between nail head and bone.
- No traumatic lesion on the forearms found in the 1985 re-examination.
- Skeleton friable, fragmentary, with many post-mortem breaks.
- Ossuary inscription gives a personal name and an unexplained patronymic/epithet HGQWL.
- The man received normal Jewish secondary burial in a family tomb.
Open questions
- How he was fixed to the cross: N. Haas (IEJ 20, 1970) proposed one 17-18 cm nail through both heels (as reported by Zias); J. Zias and E. Sekeles (IEJ 35, 1985) reject this because the nail is only 11.5 cm and they found no traumatic injury to the forearms, and Zias concludes the arms were bound, the feet nailed separately.
- How many crucifixion victims survive: Zias (essay) and Gualdi-Russo et al. (Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 11, 2019) both treat Giv'at ha-Mivtar as the only well-documented case; Gualdi-Russo et al. propose a second, 'possible' case from an isolated Roman burial at Gavello, northern Italy (excavated 2007), from a lesion on a heel bone, while stating the poor bone preservation complicates the reading. Zias explains the rarity by crucifixion nails being taken as healing amulets (Mishnah Shabbat 6:10) and by victims often being tied.
- Meaning of HGQWL: the sources read give it untranslated; its reading (patronymic, place or nickname) is not settled in them.
Sources
- V. Tzaferis, 'Jewish Tombs at and near Giv'at ha-Mivtar, Jerusalem', Israel Exploration Journal 20 (1970); N. Haas, 'Anthropological Observations on the Skeletal Remains from Giv'at ha-Mivtar', IEJ 20 (1970) link excavation report
- J. Zias and E. Sekeles, 'The Crucified Man from Giv'at ha-Mivtar: A Reappraisal', Israel Exploration Journal 35 (1985) 22-27; summary in The Biblical Archaeologist 48:3 (1985) 190-191, DOI 10.2307/3209939 link study
- Joseph Zias, 'Crucifixion in Antiquity - The Evidence' (web essay, centuryone.org, archived 2016) link study
- Vassilios Tzaferis, 'Crucifixion - The Archaeological Evidence', Biblical Archaeology Review 11:1 (Jan/Feb 1985) link excavation report
- E. Gualdi-Russo, U. Thun Hohenstein, N. Onisto, E. Pilli, D. Caramelli, 'A multidisciplinary study of calcaneal trauma in Roman Italy: a possible case of crucifixion?', Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 11:5 (2019) 1783-1791, DOI 10.1007/s12520-018-0631-9 link study
Corrected from the earlier edition of this page
- Old entry: 'Dimensions: Nail: 11.5 cm long' - correct per Zias & Sekeles 1985, but the old overview's 'large iron nail' reconstruction follows Haas 1970, whose 17-18 cm length and two-feet-one-nail model were rejected in 1985.
- Old entry: 'Current Location: Israel Antiquities Authority' ('housed in the Israel Antiquities Authority'). The IAA is an agency, not a display location; the present whereabouts of the bone was not confirmed in the sources cited here.
- Old entry: 'Only archaeological crucifixion evidence'. It is the only well-documented case per Zias and Gualdi-Russo et al.; a second possible case from Gavello, Italy was published in 2018/2019.
- Old entry: 'Confirms Roman crucifixion practice'. The bone shows a nailed heel; the executing authority is not recorded on the find. The date range (before 70 CE) falls in the Roman period.
- Old entry omits the ossuary inscription entirely ('N/A'). The ossuary is inscribed 'Jehohanan son of HGQWL'.
2024–2026 check incomplete: limited: Web-search budget ran out before a full 2024-2026 sweep for this entry; the most recent item located is Gualdi-Russo et al. (online 2018, printed 2019)