Roman Crucifixion in Britain

This is the skeleton of 4926, who is the star subject of a recent excavation by Albion Archaeology in in the fenlands of Cambridgeshire, UK. You see him here, laid out as he was in his burial, a man between 25-35 years old. He was part of a small village in Late Roman Britain, and his grave was one among almost fifty discovered in the area.

Skeleton 4926 was like most of the people of his Roman community (the area is called Fenstanton today), which meant his body probably experienced a great deal of pain due to malnutrition and hard living. Most of Fenstanton’s Roman dead had serious dental disease. Arthritis was the norm (50% of the skeletons had it, particularly in their spines), and so, too, was _cribia orbitalia_ (worm-like patterns in eye sockets caused by iron deficiency — perhaps from malaria). Many of the deceased had experienced broken and fractured bones during their lives.

However, our man number 4926 is distinguished in one particular way: he was crucified. If you look at the second image, you can see his heel bone, the calcaneum, and a nail driven straight through it.

Historians of course have much written source information attesting to this method of execution, but this is the only physical evidence from Britain and one of only four for the entirety of the Ancient Roman world. Usually nails were not used, or if they were, they were removed because of their high value, but somehow 4926 still kept one of his.

Crucifixion was a gruesome and dishonorable way to die. Roman citizens could not have it done to them, so maybe this person had been a slave. The process was brutal and painful — the feet of the condemned would have been nailed to prevent them from pushing up on their feet in order to catch their breath — eventually, they would have asphyxiated.

It remains a puzzle as to why this person got a respectful burial after such an ignominious death. As archaeologists David Ingham and Corinne Duhig conclude in their upcoming article for _British Archaeology_, “We will never know his name or the perceived offence for which he was apparently killed, but his story will be pondered by many more today than ever knew of him at the time he died.”