A Death in Jerusalem

lt was a time of great unrest and turmoil in ancient Judea. Restive under the rule of pagan Rome, the Jews of Palestine in the 1st century A.D. repeatedly defied their conquerors with covert gestures of opposition and open acts of rebellion. The Roman response was usually swift and cruel. Perhaps because he participated in one of these uprisings or committed some other grievous offense in the eyes of Jerusalem's stern rulers, a young Judean named Yehohanan (a Hebrew form of John) was sentenced to death. Like thousands of other Jews--including Jesus of Nazareth --who were also condemned by the Roman procurators during those turbulent years, Yehohanan died slowly and painfully on the cross.

First Evidence. Yehohanan's death was quickly forgotten. No documents have ever been found that record his crime or recall his crucifixion. Yet, after nearly 2,000 years, he has now suddenly and sensationally re-emerged from the dustbins of history. Last week Israeli archaeologists announced that they had identified the remains of the unfortunate young man and found clear evidence of his grisly execution.

The Israeli scholars, who studied the find for more than two years before making their announcement, were understandably cautious. What they uncovered and authenticated is the first firm physical evidence of an actual crucifixion in the ancient Mediterranean world. Although history records that this form of punishment was continued by the Romans until the 4th century A.D. (when it was finally outlawed by the Emperor Constantine I, who legalized Christianity in the empire), the only previous physical evidence of crucifixion was extremely tenuous. It consisted of a few bones, excavated in Italy and Rumania, containing holes in the forearms and heels that could have been made during crucifixions. But there was never any trace of the nails that might have been used to penetrate the body of the victim and fasten him to the cross.

The new archaeological evidence, a byproduct of intense excavation and building activities by the Israelis in the territories they conquered in the Six-Day War, is far more substantial. In June 1968, a year after Israeli troops occupied all of Jerusalem, workmen began bulldozing a rocky hillside more than a mile north of the Old City's Damascus Gate in preparation for putting up a modern apartment-house complex. They discovered almost immediately that the site, called Giv'at ha-Mivtar (meaning Hill of the Divide), was honeycombed with burial caves dating back to biblical times.

Summoned by Israel's Department of Antiquities and Museums, Archaeologist Vasilius Tzaferis quickly pried open the lids of 15 ossuaries, or stone coffins, which held the skeletons of 35 people--eleven men, twelve women and twelve children. At least five of the Judeans had met violent deaths. But Tzaferis was especially intrigued by what he found in one ossuary, which contained the bones of a child about three or four years old and those of an adult whose name--Yehohanan--was inscribed in barely legible Aramaic letters on the outside. The man's heel bones were penetrated by the rusty remains of a 7-in.-long nail.

From these fragile bones, a Rumanian-born anatomist and anthropologist at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, Nicu Haas, was able to put together a surprisingly detailed picture of the young man: in his mid-20s at the time of his death, he was of average height for the period (5 ft. 5 in.), had delicate, pleasing features that seemed to approach the Hellenistic ideal, probably wore a beard, and apparently had never performed any really arduous labor--indicating his possible upper-class origins. Except for the injuries inflicted during his crucifixion, he seemed to have been in exceptionally fine health. His only deformities were a slight cleft palate and a barely perceptible asymmetry of the skull, possibly a sign of a difficult birth.

Crooked Nail. The single telltale nail was preserved by an odd quirk. Because of a tough knot in the olive wood of the cross, the nail was slightly bent to the side as it was hammered into place. Later, after the young man had been given the traditional coup de grace (a blow that broke both legs and would have hastened the victim's death by causing hemorrhage and shock), the crooked nail apparently proved to be stubbornly embedded in the cross and hindered efforts to take down the body. The only practical way that this could be done, writes Haas in the Israel Exploration Journal, was "to cut the feet off and then remove the entire complex --nail, plaque of wood [which helped keep the feet in position] and feet --from the cross." Then, these severed parts were apparently immediately buried along with the rest of the body in a temporary grave; Jewish custom forbids long exposure after death. Subsequently, Yehohanan's remains were disinterred by friends or relatives and removed to their permanent resting place outside the city, where they lay undisturbed until 1968.

The actual date of the execution was not so apparent. But from pottery and other artifacts in the cave, the Israeli scholars were able to make a rough estimate: it could have taken place as early as A.D. 7, when the Judeans rose up against the Romans to protest an official census, or as late as the final decade before the destruction of the Second Temple and the dispersion of the Jews in A.D. 70.

Jesus' Agony. The time and place of the young man's execution invited comparison to Jesus Christ's own Passion on the cross--which scholars believe took place about A.D. 30, when Jesus was in his mid-30s.*But Israel's director of antiquities, Avraham Biran, and a number of Christian biblical scholars were quick to warn against any attempt to identify the skeleton as that of Jesus. As Dr. Bruce Metzger of the Princeton Theological Seminary pointed out, "We have absolutely no knowledge of Jesus' physical stature." Moreover, the man was younger than Jesus, and the Gospels report that the Roman soldiers, in contrast to their regular practice, did not break the legs of Jesus before his death; they thrust a lance into his side. Both the archaeologists and biblical scholars were understandably concerned. Any suggestion, however farfetched, that the body was that of Jesus would challenge two of Christianity's central beliefs: the Resurrection, the doctrine that Christ rose from the dead three days after the Crucifixion; and the Ascension, which holds that Jesus ascended bodily into heaven 40 days later.

Although the Giv'at ha-Mivtar finding does not add any new information about Jesus' life, it may give added dimension to his final suffering. In classical religious art, the crucified Jesus is usually shown in an erect position, fastened to the cross by nails driven through his outstretched hands and through his feet. To some scholars, however, that interpretation of the Crucifixion has long seemed highly implausible. With the bulk of his weight suspended from his hands, the victim's body would sag; it would become extremely difficult for the breathing muscles to function, and death would almost surely follow rapidly. According to Haas' reconstruction of Yehohanan's crucifixion--which could well have been typical of those in ancient Palestine --the nails were driven through the forearms to provide greater support and the victim's legs were twisted to one side and folded up. Haas calls this a "compulsive, unnatural position." But, he explains, it would have served the purposes of the executioners very well: it would have prolonged both the victim's life and his agony.

*In fixing the date for the start of the Christian era, the 6th century Scythian monk Dionysius Exiguus introduced an error of at least four years in calculating the year of Jesus' birth. Furthermore, the Gospels do not give a precise date for either Christ's birth or death.

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