The only evidence of crucifixion taking place in Britain has been found by archaeologists in Cambridgeshire.
The remains of a young man with a nail through his right heel are the best evidence of crucifixion dating from the Roman empire in Europe and one of two confirmed examples in the world, researchers say.
The skeleton, which dates from the third or fourth century AD, was found during the construction of a housing estate in the town of Fenstanton in 2017. A team of academics and contractors spent the following four years verifying the find as an example of the brutal Roman punishment.
Archaeologists suspect the man was a slave due to the thinness of his shin bones, which may have been caused by shackles worn over a long period. They found forty-seven other graves alongside him, all of which belonged to members of the native British population.
The heel bone and nail were discovered in the wet and muddy site on a dark day in November, so it was only when archaeologists brought the remains for cleaning that they realised what they had found.
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The discovery was “quite remarkable” said David Ingham, a project manager at the contractors Albion Archaeology. He told how joking about the chance of finding a crucified bone turned into “a lot of excitement” when it dawned on the team what they had unearthed.
Corinne Duhig, director of studies in archaeology at Wolfson College, Cambridge, said: “Our skeleton is the second only in the whole of the Roman empire, and the first in Britannia, that we can say is almost certainly a crucifixion victim.
“The find confirms that the Roman judicial system and its forms of capital punishment were being applied even at the edge of empire and at this late period.
“The question I asked myself is, ‘If his family or friends buried him, why did they not take out the nail?’ My answer is that he appears to have been laid on some bier-like structure so his body might have been in poor condition when he was removed from the cross and it needed supporting. The priority in that case would be to get him buried as soon as possible, rather than struggling with an impacted nail.”
Duhig said that the metal spike’s placement would have made little difference to supporting the man on the cross, but it would have added to his pain as he struggled to ease the weight of his body.
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Despite tens of thousands of crucifixions taking place across the Roman world and numerous historical records, tangible evidence of them is rare because most people condemned to the agonising death were slaves, rebels and members of the lower classes. Most did not receive a proper burial.
Contrary to the portrayal of the practice in the Bible, nails were rarely used, with the accused more commonly tied up with rope and left to slowly suffocate. If iron nails were used, they would have been recycled for their metal value, and may also have been collected for perceived ritualistic properties. This means there is little left behind for archaeologists to find.
The only other confirmed crucifixion find is a heel bone found in an ossuary in Israel in 1968, which is now housed in the Israel Museum. Two other bones with holes were found in Italy and Egypt, but neither had a nail present and some academics think the holes could have been made by erosion from plant roots. The nail in the bone found in Fenstanton was bent and was therefore difficult to remove.
Ingham said that the amount of remains at the site, which was owned by the developer Tilia Homes, indicates a previously unknown Roman roadside village. Other finds made by the team of eight archaeologists over the four-month dig include evidence for industrial processing of cattle bones, possibly for cosmetics and soap. The site is near two known Roman towns and there is evidence that a villa once stood nearby.
The remains are in storage at Albion Archaeology and are set to be transferred to the Cambridgeshire Archaeology Archive.
