Jehohanan () was a
Judean man sentenced to death by
crucifixion
Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the condemned is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross, beam or stake and left to hang until eventual death. It was used as a punishment by the Achaemenid Empire, Persians, Ancient Carthag ...
sometime in the 1st century
CE. His
ossuary
An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years th ...
was found in 1968 when building contractors working in
Giv'at ha-Mivtar accidentally uncovered a Jewish tomb. The stone ossuary had the
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
inscription of "Jehohanan the son of Hagkol" (; the meaning of ''hgqwl'' is uncertain,
[Fant, C. E., Reddish, M. G. (2008:320). ''Lost Treasures of the Bible: Understanding the Bible Through Archaeological Artifacts in World Museums''. United Kingdom: Eerdmans Publishing Company.] hence his name sometimes being given as Johanan ben Ha-galgula).
In his initial anthropological observations in 1970 at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...
, Nicu Haas concluded that Jehohanan was crucified with his arms stretched out and his forearms nailed, possibly on a two-beamed cross.
However, a 1985 reappraisal by
Joseph Zias and Eliezer Sekeles of the Hebrew University found multiple errors in these observations.
["Crucifixion – The Archaeological Evidence," ''Biblical Archaeology Review'', Vol. 11 (1985), pp. 44-53][Fitzmyer, Yadin, "Epigraphy and Crucifixion," Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 23(1973), pp. 494-498.] Zias and Sekeles proposed that a horizontal beam was affixed to vertical stakes, with Jehohanan's arms tied and death occurring from
asphyxiation
Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of deficient supply of oxygen to the body which arises from abnormal breathing. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which affects all the tissues and organs, some more rapidly than others. There are ...
.
Anthropological observations
Initial observations, Haas, 1970
In his article "Anthropological Observations on the Skeletal Remains from Giv'at ha-Mivtar" published in the ''
Israel Exploration Journal
The ''Israel Exploration Journal'' is a biannual academic journal which has been published by the Israel Exploration Society since 1950. It primarily covers research in archaeology, but also history and geography relating to Israel and the surrou ...
'' in 1970, Nicu Haas of the Department of Anatomy at
Hebrew University
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. It is the second-ol ...
, wrote of the remains of a man crucified:
Haas was unable to examine the remains any further because of serious health problems, and while his conclusions became widely accepted by the general public, several errors in his observations were later identified by
Joseph Zias and Dr. Eliezer Sekeles of the Hebrew University in their 1985 reappraisal.
Reappraisal, Zias & Sekeles, 1985
In 1985, Joe Zias, curator of the
Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums, and Eliezer Sekeles, from the
Hadassah Medical Center
Hadassah Medical Center () is an Israeli medical organization established in 1934 that operates two university hospitals in Jerusalem (one in Ein Karem and one in Mount Scopus) as well as schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacology ...
, re-examined the crucifixion remains. They alleged that Haas' analysis was fraught with errors:
Zias and Sekeles also stated the presence of the scratch in one of the forearms "was not convincing" evidence of a nail wound:
In conclusion, the findings of Zias and Sekeles do not indicate whether in this case a horizontal patibulum cross-beam was attached to the upright stake to which the victim's heel was nailed. The evidence was so ambiguous concerning the arms that Zias and Sekeles had to rely on the data provided by contemporary writings to support their reconstruction of the position of the arms as attached to a crossbar:
Their reconstruction includes a crossbar which the condemned man could carry to the place of execution, and which could be used repeatedly for attachment to the upright stake permanently fixed in the ground:
References
Sources
* {{cite journal, last1=Zias, last2=Sekeles, title=The Crucified Man from Giv'at ha-Mitvar: A Reappraisal, journal=Israel Exploration Journal, volume=35, year=1985
1st-century deaths
1st-century people
People executed by crucifixion
Year of birth unknown
1968 archaeological discoveries
1968 in Israel
People from Jerusalem
Archaeological discoveries in Israel
Archaeological discoveries in the West Bank
category:1st-century artifacts
1st-century Jews