Crucifixion Burials
Achilles achillesz@usa.net
Sat, 6 Feb 1999 02:42:57 -0500 (00918308577, 07410620509769@unifour.com)
On 6 Feb 99, at 2:20, JAlw@aol.com wrote:
> Achilles
> It doesn't matter Joe. Look at your hand. Get a good picture of those
> bones. Now imagine a *very* large nail driven through it (these were more
> like a railroad spike than the nails a carpenter today would use.) There
> just isn't room for it, even if it goes between the bones they break.
> Even if by some miracle it doesn't break, there's going to be a very
> nasty scratch, and a physical specialist can tell literally at a glance
> whether such a scratch was part of the death trauma or an old wound.
>
> ==================
> Joe Alward:
>
> Straw man. You assume that nails *were* driven through the hands, not the
> wrists (where there's more room for the nail to pass without striking
> bone), AND you assume the Romans used a spike large enough to rebut my
> argument. I don't have evidence they didn't; do you have evidence they
> DID?
Achilles
To the best of my knowledge they did use very large nails. Even if we assume
smaller nails, say 10 pennies, through the wrist, I would be very surprised if
it would not reliably leave a mark on the bone that anyone with basic forensic
anthro background would spot very quickly.
But I quit school before I finished my anthro degree, so why don't you take the
suggestion you snipped, and check with someone that really knows? You work at a
University, right? You've got to have at least one person with forensic
background in your anthro department (you can't do an archaeology dig without
one,) go ask him/her, ok? Anthro people are usually rather eager to talk about
their specialties, and if you don't know who the right person is I bet any
professor and most of the students in that department would know.
/Achilles achillesz@usa.net
All rights reserved.
Random thought for the moment:
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be
done, and why. Then do it.
-- Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love