Question: Have archaeologists ever found the body of an ancient crucifixion victim?
Answer: Although historians have long known from ancient texts that the Romans executed their enemies by suspending them from wooden crosses, hardly any physical evidence of the practice has survived.
But in 1968, archaeologists excavated north of Jerusalem the burial of a man identified by a Hebrew inscription as Yehohanan or Yohanan Ben Ha'galgol. Yehohanan, who was in his mid-20s when he died, apparently had been crucified, and a 7-inch-long iron nail still pinned together his skeletal heels. Something had shattered his shin bones, and damage to his arm bones suggested that they, too, may have had been pierced by nails.
Archaeologists believe Yehohanan died in agony, of heart failure and exposure, during the first century, the same century in which Jesus lived, though Yehohanan probably lived several decades later than Jesus. The find confirms that at least some crucifixion victims were nailed to their crosses, as the Gospels say Jesus was, rather than bound to them with ropes. Some scholars had thought ropes were always used to secure victims.
Why Yehohanan was crucified may never be known. He may have been a criminal; many authorities, though, believe he was among thousands of Jewish patriots whom the Romans crucified after they revolted against the empire in A.D. 70. In any case, his bones serve as a testimony to an especially brutal method of execution.