What was found. In 1968, building work at Giv'at ha-Mivtar (north Jerusalem) exposed a group of Jewish tombs, excavated by Vassilios Tzaferis. One ossuary, inscribed "Yehohanan son of Hagkol," held the bones of a man in his twenties whose right heel bone (calcaneus) still has an 11.5-cm iron nail driven through it, with a fragment of olive-wood board between nail-head and bone and traces of the upright's wood on the point. The nail had hit a knot in the wood and bent, which is why it could not be pulled out at burial, and why this single piece of direct physical evidence of Roman crucifixion survived: he was taken down, nail and all, given a normal Jewish family burial, and reburied in the ossuary about a year later, in the very decades and city of the Gospels.
What it shows (and what it corrects). Yehohanan's feet were nailed (through the heels, likely one to each side of the upright); his arms show no nail damage through the palms, consistent with tying or with nails through the forearms, a detail debated in the literature. It also shows a crucified Jew could receive honorable burial, relevant to the historical plausibility of Joseph of Arimathea's burial of Jesus (Mark 15:42-46). The remains are held by the Israel Museum. (Principal publications: V. Tzaferis, "Jewish Tombs at and near Giv'at ha-Mivtar," IEJ 20 (1970); re-analysis J. Zias & E. Sekeles, IEJ 35 (1985).)
Sources (read live 2026-06-12): Biblical Archaeology Society, "A Tomb in Jerusalem Reveals the History of Crucifixion and Roman Crucifixion Methods" (biblicalarchaeology.org); Times of Israel, "In a stone box, the only trace of crucifixion"; Center for Online Judaic Studies, "Crucifixion Bone Fragment, 21 CE." Formal references: Tzaferis 1970; Zias & Sekeles 1985.
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