Crucifixion Nails — What Archaeology Actually Tells Us (and Doesn't)

“Jesus wasn’t nailed through the palms — it was the wrists.” This claim circulates widely in Bible studies and popular apologetics, typically supported by anatomical reasoning: the soft tissue of the palm cannot bear the weight of a human body, therefore the nails must have been driven through the wrist or lower forearm. The argument is medically coherent. But it is not, as is sometimes implied, something archaeology has confirmed.

The actual skeletal evidence for Roman crucifixion is frustratingly sparse, and what we do have tells a more guarded story.

Gary Todd, Nail & Heel Bone — the only known physical evidence of crucifixion, Jerusalem, 1st century AD, Israel Museum. CC0 1.0.

The 1968 Discovery at Giv’at ha-Mivtar

In 1968, during construction work north of Jerusalem, archaeologists opened an ossuary at Giv’at ha-Mivtar. Inside lay the bones of a first-century Jewish man named Yehohanan ben Hagkol. Through his right heel bone (calcaneum) was an iron nail, still embedded in olive wood — the nail had bent on a knot and could not be extracted.

This remains the only physically confirmed skeletal evidence for Roman crucifixion in the entire archaeological record. N. Haas published the initial analysis in the Israel Exploration Journal (IEJ 20, 1970), where he reported observing marks on the forearm bones that he interpreted as evidence of nail penetration through the wrist or lower arm.

The 1985 Reappraisal — A Different Conclusion

Seventeen years later, Joseph Zias and Eliezer Sekeles returned to the same bones and published a formal reappraisal in the same journal (IEJ 35, 1985). Their conclusion reversed the 1970 reading on the critical point: there is no evidence that a nail penetrated Yehohanan’s arm bones. The marks Haas had attributed to wrist-nailing did not hold up under renewed examination.

Zias and Sekeles proposed instead that Yehohanan’s arms were likely tied to the crossbeam rather than nailed — a method the ancient sources themselves also mention. The only place where a nail was directly confirmed remained the right heel bone.

This reappraisal matters. It means that even the single best-documented case of ancient crucifixion does not confirm wrist-nailing. It neither proves nor disproves the anatomical argument. It simply cannot speak to the question.

A Second Case: Fenstanton, 2021

In 2017, excavations in Fenstanton, Cambridgeshire, uncovered Roman-era skeletal remains. When the findings were published in 2021 and written up in British Archaeology (no. 180, January–February 2022) by David Ingham and Corinne Duhig, the pattern was similar: a nail had penetrated the heel bone. No evidence of arm or wrist nailing was present.

Two cases, both showing heel nails, neither speaking to what happened at the arms.

What the Evidence Does and Does Not Say

To be precise: the anatomical argument — that palm tissue cannot bear body weight and that nails would therefore have been placed at the wrist — is a reasonable biomechanical inference. It may well be correct. The problem arises when this anatomical reasoning is presented as an established archaeological finding, because it is not.

Roman crucifixion methods varied. Ancient literary sources describe crucifixions with both nails and ropes, in various body positions, on various cross configurations. The two skeletal examples we have are extraordinary survivals from a practice that normally left no bones behind — the bodies of the executed were typically denied burial. These two cases illuminate one real variation of the practice, but they cannot settle debates about every aspect of every execution.

Reading John 20 More Carefully

Against this background, it is worth returning to John 20:24–29. Thomas, absent from the resurrection appearance, demands evidence before he will believe:

“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25)

Thomas’s concern is not anatomical. He is not asking whether the nail holes are in the palms or the wrists. He is asking whether the person the other disciples saw is the same Jesus who was crucified — the one he watched die. The nail marks are a means of identification, not a medical case study.

Caravaggio, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, 1601–1602 — Sanssouci, Potsdam. Public domain. (Seventeenth-century devotional painting, not an archaeological document.)

Dorothy A. Lee, writing on the wounds of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel in a 2023 article for Review & Expositor (120.1–2), argues that John’s focus on the risen Christ’s wounds serves twin theological purposes: it attests the reality of the resurrection (this is the same body) and the reality of the suffering (the crucifixion was not an illusion). The evangelist is not providing a forensic description of nail placement.

This does not mean the anatomical discussion is worthless — it is a legitimate historical conversation. But disciplined reading of the evidence requires distinguishing between what can be inferred from biomechanics and what has been confirmed by bones. Currently, archaeology has found nails in heels. What happened at the hands remains an open question.

Sources

• N. Haas, “Anthropological Observations on the Skeletal Remains from Giv’at ha-Mivtar,” Israel Exploration Journal 20 (1970): 38–59
• Joseph Zias & Eliezer Sekeles, “The Crucified Man from Giv’at ha-Mivtar: A Reappraisal,” Israel Exploration Journal 35 (1985): 22–27
• David Ingham & Corinne Duhig, “Crucifixion in the Fens: Life and Death in Roman Fenstanton,” British Archaeology 180 (January–February 2022): 18–29
• Dorothy A. Lee, “The Significance of the Wounds of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel,” Review & Expositor 120.1–2 (2023): 114–126

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