The Image of the Cross is wrong, it was X shaped and just above the height of a man.

Originally posted by Shiloh7
He informed us that there are/were no big trees in the land and that people were cruficied on stakes simply shaped into an 'X'. They were spread eagled, stark naked with their arms and ankles nailed to each end of the X.

How about transporting goods (wood) from other areas?

reply to post by arpgme


Thanks I did know about the Tau X link. The Museum expert showed the X crucifixes and how a person was attached . Even though one wasn't towering above and looking down, it must still have been horrendous.

Also they made Triremes.

reply to post by sad_eyed_lady


I didn't know about the Armenian and Turkish situation and have just read some articles about it. I am surprised that no war crimes have ever been brought against the Turks concerned because the murder and torture especially of women and children and the 1.5 millions who suffered is unbelievable and utterly wicked. Its hard to think in a civilised world that humabn could do this to human.

I found the picture of the young Armenian women cruficied by Muslims because they were Christian unbelievable.
When people say that religion is one of the main causes of strife, that picture simply proves it without doubt.

reply to post by Seede


Interestingly the Archaelogist measured the nail going through the bone and said it would never have been long enough to secure both ankles to a stake. If you have Catch up tv you could go back and see the episode.

I do find the Shroud of Turin a very strange piece of fabric simply because its hard to imagine a single piece of clothe remaining intact for virtually 2000 years and keeping its image without it fading.

reply to post by Malcher


The Expert didn't cover this but I assume simply that the cost of other wood would have been considered a waste. In fact I think they recycled the crucifixes which just seems gross.

I also suspect that Rome getting its taxes and not wasting money on perceived scoundrals was a consideration - unless I am purely thinking through 'today's eyes' on 'money,money,money'. Often when putting someone to death they were stoned which obviously was cheap. I suspect we will never really know but its been interesting reading other people's views and I do think that the X was most likely the shape chosen back then; although having seen an earlier post concerning the Armenian women who were crucified in WW1 I can only conclude they used modern technology to make and sink those crosses.

Quick search, and I found this:

Among the Romans the cross never had the symbolical meaning which it had in the ancient Orient; they regarded it solely as a material instrument of punishment. There are in the Old Testament clear allusions to the Cross and Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Thus the Greek letter T (tau or thau) appears in Ezechiel (ix, 4), according to St. Jerome and other Fathers, as a solemn symbol of the Cross of Christ—"Mark Thau upon the foreheads of the men that sigh". The only other symbol of crucifixion indicated in the Old Testament is the brazen serpent in the Book of Numbers (xxi, 8-9). Christ Himself thus interpreted the passage: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up" (John, iii, 14). The Psalmist predicts the piercing of the hands and the feet (Ps. xxi, 17). This was a true prophecy, inasmuch as it could not be conceived from any custom then existing; the practice of nailing the condemned to a T-shaped cross being, as we have seen, at that time exclusively Western.

The cross on which Jesus Christ was nailed was of the kind known as immissa, which means that the vertical trunk extended a certain height above the trans-verse beam; it was thus higher than the crosses of the two thieves, his crime being judged a graver one, according to St. John Chrysostom (Homil. v, c. i., on I Corinth.). The earliest Christian Fathers who speak of the Cross describe it as thus constructed. We gather as much from St. Matthew (xxvii, 37), where he tells us that the titulus, or inscription containing the cause of His death, was placed epano, "over", the head of Jesus Christ (cf. Luke, xxiii, 38; John, xix, 19). St. Irenaus (Adv. Haer., II, xxiv) says that the Cross had five extremities: two in its length, two in its breadth, and the fifth a projection (habitus) in the middle—"Fines et summitates habet quinque, duas in longitudine, duas in latitudine, unam in medio". St. Augustine agrees with him: "Erat latitudo in qua porrecti sunt manus; longitudo a terra surgens, in qua erat corpus infixum; altitudo ab illo divexo ligno sursum quod imminet" (Enarr. in Ps. ciii; Serm. i, 44) and in other passages quoted by Zockler (Das Kreuz, 1875, pp. 430, 431).

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