Crucifixion Is a common method of Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, in which the victim was nailing or binding to a large wooden beam and left to hang, several days for death from exhaustion and asphyxiation.
Crucifixion it’s the method by which Christians believe their messiah, Jesus Christ, was killed. The origins of the word “excruciating”, a word we often use to talk about the feeling of extreme pain, are derived from the Latin words for “cross” and “crucified”.
This method of execution was supposed to cause excruciating pain. Crucifixion was a warning to all, karmic retribution written by the state: “This is what you get when you mess with us.”
The crucifixion site of Jesus is at a spot outside Jerusalem called Golgotha.
Crucifixion Roman
Crucifixion was considered one of the most brutal and humiliating modes of death. Crucifixion’s origins date back long before Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. The Persians had been crucifying wrongdoers as early as the 6th century BC, and there’s evidence that the Assyrians and Babylonians may have been putting people up on crosses hundreds of years before that.
The ancient Greeks though, were less interested in crucifixion, preferring methods like letting the condemned drink poison, but some historians mention at least one instance. That after capturing a Persian general, the army “nailed him to a plank and hung him up.”
Alexander the Great is the one man responsible for exporting crucifixion from Persia and spreading it to the western world, and in fact, he crucified thousands of his enemies. It wouldn’t be too long until the Romans got their hands on it and they’re the ones who really perfected it, but they didn’t often crucify their own.
This terrible method of killing was usually reserved for foreigners and Christian outsiders, although some slaves and soldiers that had disgraced themselves may have also been crucified.
Painful Death
A victim that had been crucified would often die within just a few hours. There were many ways a person might die, such as asphyxiation from being strung up in a way that prevented proper breathing.
They might also have been grievously injured from beatings prior to being hung up on the cross and simply die from their injuries once they were up there. But some people managed to hold on for a few days.
Roman soldiers were told to guard the sites where people were crucified, and if that person lasted too long, they might break the person’s legs to prevent them from being able to stand up straight leading to asphyxiation, or they might just simply drive a spear through the person’s heart.
Sometimes soldiers would break the leg bones to make it even more painful and harder to support themselves. Once this preparatory support was lost your arms would be pulled slowly from their sockets.
The weight of your own body would cause expansion of the chest and lungs, and with no way to push yourself up to relieve this, it leads quickly to asphyxiation. You essentially choke yourself to death. The heart would also suffer from this weight and you might even die from heart failure before your lungs gave out.
No matter what killed you first, it was an agonizing way to die. On some crosses, support might have been given in the form of a foot-rest, extending the time it would take for you to die, sometimes taking as long as a few days.
Crucifixion Of Jesus
The crucifixion of Christ happened in 1st-century Judea, most likely between 30 and 33 A.D. The record of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion in the four canonical Gospels starts with his scourging.
As per the canonical gospels, Jesus Christ was arrested and attempted by the Sanhedrin and then sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged, and ultimately crucified by the Romans. The Roman soldiers mocked Jesus as the “Ruler of the Jews” they put a crown of thorns in Jesus’s head and led him slowly to Golgotha. Simon of Cyrene was permitted to help him in conveying the cross.
At the place of execution, he was stripped and then nailed to the wooden cross. His legs were affixed together with one iron nail then his hands were tied and nailed though and he likely died from asphyxiation. At the highest point of the cross was placed “the condemnatory inscription stating his crime of professing to be King of the Jews.”