The crucified man’s heel bone

Crucifixion left almost no physical trace, its victims rarely received marked burial. The exception surfaced in 1968 at Giv‘at ha-Mivtar, north Jerusalem (excavated by Vassilios Tzaferis): an ossuary inscribed “Yehohanan son of Hagkol” held a man in his twenties whose right heel bone still carries an 11.5-cm iron nail, a scrap of olive-wood board pressed under its head. The nail had hit a knot and bent, it could not be pulled out, which is why this single direct witness to Roman crucifixion survived, from the very city and decades of the Gospels. His feet were nailed at the heels; his arms show no nail damage, tying, or nails through the forearms, is debated. And he was taken down and given an honorable Jewish family burial, directly relevant to the plausibility of Joseph of Arimathea’s burial of Jesus (Mark 15:42–46).