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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.[1] It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Ancient Carthage, and Roman Empire, among others. Crucifixion has been used in some countries as recently as the 21st century.Roger Bourke, Prisoners of the Japanese: Literary imagination and the prisoner-of-war experience (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2006), Chapter 2 " A Town Like Alice and the prisoner of war as Christ-figure", pp. 30–65.
The crucifixion of Jesus is central to Christianity and the Christian cross (in Catholic Church usually crucifix) is Christianity's preeminent religious symbol. His death is the most prominent example of crucifixion in history, which in turn has led many cultures in the modern world to associate the execution method closely with Jesus and with Christian spirituality. Other figures in Christianity are traditionally believed to have undergone crucifixion as well, including Saint Peter, who Church tradition says was crucified upside-down, and Saint Andrew, who Church tradition says was crucified on an Saltire. Today, limited numbers of Christians voluntarily undergo non-lethal crucifixions as a devotional practice.
The Koine Greek used in the Christian New Testament uses four verbs, three of them based upon (σταυρός), usually translated "cross". The most common term is (σταυρόω), "to crucify", occurring 46 times; (συσταυρόω), "to crucify with" or "alongside" occurs five times, while (ἀνασταυρόω), "to crucify again" occurs only once at the Epistle to the Hebrews . (προσπήγνυμι), "to fix or fasten to, impale, crucify" occurs only once, at the Acts of the Apostles .
The English term cross derives from the Latin word crux, which classically referred to a tree or any construction of wood used to hang criminals as a form of execution. The term later came to refer specifically to a cross. Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary: crux, ŭcis, f. (m., Enn. ap. Non. p. 195, 13; Gracch. ap. Fest. s. v. masculino, p. 150, 24, and 151, 12 Müll.) perh.. I. Lit. A. In gen., a tree, frame, or other wooden instruments of execution, on which criminals were impaled or hanged, Sen. Prov. 3, 10; Cic. Rab. Perd. 3, 10 sqq. B. In partic., a cross, Ter. And. 3, 5, 15; Cic. Verr. 2, 1, 3, § 7; 2, 1, 4, § 9; id. Pis. 18, 42; id. Fin. 5, 30, 92; Quint. 4, 2, 17; Tac. A. 15, 44; Hor. S. 1, 3, 82; 2, 7, 47; id. Ep. 1, 16, 48 et saep.: "dignus fuit qui malo cruce periret, Gracch. ap. Fest. l. l.: pendula", the pole of a carriage, Stat. S. 4, 3, 28. The related term crucifix derives from the Latin crucifixus or cruci fixus, past participle passive of crucifigere or cruci figere, meaning "to crucify" or "to fasten to a cross".
At times the gibbet was a simple vertical stake, called in Latin crux simplex. Frequently, however, there was a cross-piece attached either at the top to give the shape of a T ( Tau cross) or just below the top, as in the form most familiar in Christian symbolism ( crux immissa)."The ... oldest depiction of a crucifixion ... was uncovered by archaeologists more than a century ago on the Palatine Hill in Rome. It is a 2nd-century graffiti scratched into a wall that was part of the imperial palace complex. It includes a caption – not by a Christian, but by someone taunting and deriding Christians and the crucifixions they underwent. It shows crude stick figure of a boy reverencing his 'God', who has the head of a donkey and is upon a cross with arms spread wide and with hands nailed to the crossbeam. Here we have a Roman sketch of a Roman crucifixion, and it is in the traditional cross shape." Clayton F. Bower Jr. "Cross or Torture Stake?" The most ancient image of a Roman crucifixion depicts an individual on a cross. It is a graffito found in a taberna (hostel for wayfarers) in Pozzuoli, dating to the time of Trajan or Hadrian (late 1st century to early 2nd century AD).
Writers in the 2nd century who speak of the execution cross describe the crucified person's arms as outstretched, not attached to a single stake: Lucian speaks of Prometheus as crucified "above the ravine with his hands outstretched". He also says that the shape of the letter Τ (the Greek letter tau) was that of the wooden instrument used for crucifying."It was his body that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they set up the erections on which men are crucified" ( Lucian, Trial in the Court of Vowels, p. 30 Artemidorus, another writer of the same period, says that a cross is made of posts (plural) and nails and that the arms of the crucified are outstretched. Speaking of the generic execution cross, Irenaeus (), a Christian writer, describes it as composed of an upright and a transverse beam, sometimes with a small projection in the upright."The very form of the cross, too, has five extremities, two in length, two in breadth, and one in the middle, on which last the person rests who is fixed by the nails" ( Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses II, 4).
New Testament writings about the crucifixion of Jesus do not specify the shape of that cross, but subsequent early writings liken it to the letter T. According to William Barclay, because tau is shaped exactly like the crux commissa and represented the number 300, "wherever the Church Fathers came across the number 300 in the Old Testament they took it to be a mystical prefiguring of the cross of Christ". The earliest example, written around the late 1st century, is the Epistle of Barnabas, with another example being Clement of Alexandria (c. 215).
Justin Martyr () sees the cross of Christ represented in the crossed Rotisserie used to roast the Passover lamb.
A possibility that does not require tying is that the nails were inserted just above the wrist, through the soft tissue, between the two bones of the forearm (the radius and the ulna).
A foot-rest ( suppedaneum) attached to the cross, perhaps for the purpose of taking the person's weight off the wrists, is sometimes included in representations of the crucifixion of Jesus but is not discussed in ancient sources. Some scholars interpret the Alexamenos graffito (), the earliest surviving depiction of the crucifixion, as including such a foot-rest. Ancient sources also mention the sedile, a small seat attached to the front of the cross, about halfway down, which could have served a similar purpose.
In 1968, archaeologists discovered at Giv'at ha-Mivtar in northeast Jerusalem the remains of one Jehohanan, who was crucified in the 1st century AD. The remains included a heel bone with a nail driven through it from the side. The tip of the nail was bent, perhaps because of striking a knot in the upright beam, which prevented it being extracted from the foot. A first inaccurate account of the length of the nail led some to believe that it had been driven through both heels, suggesting that the man had been placed in a sort of sidesaddle position, but the true length of the nail, , suggests instead that in this case of crucifixion the heels were nailed to opposite sides of the upright. David W. Chapman, Ancient Jewish and Christian perceptions of crucifixion (Mohr Siebeck, 2008), pp. 86–89 As of 2011, the skeleton from Giv'at ha-Mivtar was the only confirmed example of ancient crucifixion in the archaeological record. A second set of skeletal remains with holes transverse through the calcaneum heel bones, found in 2007, could be a second archaeological record of crucifixion. The find in Cambridgeshire (United Kingdom) in November 2017 of the remains of the heel bone of a (probably enslaved) man with an iron nail through it, is believed by the archeologists to confirm the use of this method in ancient Rome.
A theory attributed to Pierre Barbet held that, when the whole body weight was supported by the stretched arms, the typical cause of death was asphyxiation. He wrote that the condemned would have severe difficulty inhaling, due to hyper-expansion of the chest muscles and lungs. The condemned would therefore have to draw himself up by the arms, leading to exhaustion, or have his feet supported by tying or by a wood block. When no longer able to lift himself, the condemned would die within a few minutes. This theory has been supported by multiple scholars. Other scholars, including Frederick Zugibe, posit other causes of death. Zugibe suspended test subjects with their arms at 60° to 70° from the vertical. The test subjects had no difficulty breathing during experiments, but did suffer rapidly increasing pain, which is consistent with the Roman use of crucifixion to achieve a prolonged, agonizing death. However, Zugibe's positioning of the test subjects necessarily did not precisely replicate the conditions of historical crucifixion. In 2023, an analysis of medical literature concluded that asphyxiation is discredited as the primary cause of death from crucifixion.
There is scholarly support for several possible non-asphyxiation causes of death: Cardiac arrest or Heart arrhythmia, hypovolemic shock, acidosis, dehydration, and pulmonary embolism. Death could result from any combination of those factors, or from other causes, including sepsis following infection due to the wounds caused by the nails or by the flagellation that often preceded crucifixion, or from stabbing by the guards.
There is an ancient record of one person who survived a crucifixion that was intended to be lethal, but was interrupted. Josephus recounts:
I saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintances. I was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to Titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician's hands, while the third recovered. The Life Of Flavius Josephus, 75.Josephus gives no details of the method or duration of the crucifixion of his three friends.
The Greeks were generally opposed to performing crucifixions. Stavros, Scolops (σταῦρός, σκόλοψ). The cross; encyclopedia Hellinica However, in his Histories, ix.120–122, Greek writer Herodotus describes the execution of a Persian general at the hands of Athenians in about 479 BC: "They nailed him to a plank and hung him up ... this Artayctes who suffered death by crucifixion."Translation by Aubrey de Selincourt. The original, "σανίδα προσπασσαλεύσαντες, ἀνεκρέμασαν ... Τούτου δὲ τοῦ Ἀρταύκτεω τοῦ ἀνακρεμασθέντος ...", is translated by Henry Cary (Bohn's Classical Library: Herodotus Literally Translated. London, G. Bell and Sons 1917, pp. 591–592) as: "They nailed him to a plank and hoisted him aloft ... this Artayctes who was hoisted aloft". The Commentary on Herodotus by How and Wells remarks: "They crucified him with hands and feet stretched out and nailed to cross-pieces; cf. vii.33. This act, supposedly unusual on the part of Greeks, may be explained by the enormity of the outrage or by Athenian deference to local feeling."W.W. How and J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1912), vol. 2, p. 336 Some Christian , beginning with Paul of Tarsus writing in , have interpreted an allusion to crucifixion in Deuteronomy . This reference is to being hanged from a tree, and may be associated with lynching or traditional hanging. However, Rabbinic law limited capital punishment to just 4 methods of execution: stoning, burning, strangulation, and decapitation, while the passage in Deuteronomy was interpreted as an obligation to hang the corpse on a tree as a form of deterrence.See Mishnah, Sanhedrin 7:1, translated in Jacob Neusner, The Mishnah: A New Translation 591 (1988), supra note 8, at 595–596 (indicating that court ordered execution by stoning, burning, decapitation, or strangulation only) The fragmentary Aramaic Testament of Levi (DSS 4Q541) interprets in column 6: "God ... (partially legible)- will set ... right errors. ... (partially legible)- He will judge ... revealed sins. Investigate and seek and know how Jonah wept. Thus, you shall not destroy the weak by wasting away or by ... (partially legible)- crucifixion ... Let not the nail touch him."
The Jewish king Alexander Jannaeus, king of Judea from 103 to 76 BCE, crucified 800 rebels, said to be Pharisees, in the middle of Jerusalem.
Alexander the Great is reputed to have crucified 2,000 survivors from his siege of the city of Tyre, as well as the doctor who unsuccessfully treated Alexander's lifelong friend Hephaestion. Some historians have also conjectured that Alexander crucified Callisthenes, his official historian and biographer, for objecting to Alexander's adoption of the Persian ceremony of Proskynesis.
In Carthage, crucifixion was an established mode of execution, which could even be imposed on generals for suffering a major defeat.
The earliest reference to crucifixion may be a post-mortem one mentioned by Herodotus. Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, was put to death in 522 BCE by the Persians, and his dead body was then crucified.Herodotus, Histories, ("Having killed him in some way not fit to be told, Oroetes then crucified him")
Crucifixion was generally performed within Ancient Rome as a means to dissuade others from perpetrating similar crimes, with victims sometimes left on display after death as a warning. Crucifixion was intended to provide a death that was particularly slow, painful (hence the term excruciating, literally "out of crucifying"), gruesome, humiliating, and public, using whatever means were most expedient for that goal. Crucifixion methods varied considerably with location and period.
One hypothesis suggested that the Ancient Rome custom of crucifixion may have developed out of a primitive custom of arbori suspendere—hanging on an arbor infelix ("inauspicious tree") dedicated to the gods of the nether world. This hypothesis is rejected by William A. Oldfather, who shows that this form of execution (the supplicium more maiorum, punishment in accordance with the custom of our ancestors) consisted of suspending someone from a tree, not dedicated to any particular gods, and flogging him to death. Tertullian mentions a 1st-century AD case in which trees were used for crucifixion, but Seneca the Younger earlier used the phrase infelix lignum (unfortunate wood) for the transom ("patibulum") or the whole cross.After quoting a poem by Maecenas that speaks of preferring life to death even when life is burdened with all the disadvantages of old age or even with acute torture ("vel acuta si sedeam cruce"), Seneca disagrees with the sentiment, saying death would be better for a crucified person hanging from the patibulum: "I should deem him most despicable had he wished to live to the point of crucifixion ... Is it worth so much to weigh down upon one's own wound, and hang stretched out from a patibulum? ... Is anyone found who, after being fastened to that accursed wood, already weakened, already deformed, swelling with ugly weals on shoulders and chest, with many reasons for dying even before getting to the cross, would wish to prolong a life-breath that is about to experience so many torments?" ("Contemptissimum putarem, si vivere vellet usque ad crucem ... Est tanti vulnus suum premere et patibulo pendere districtum ... Invenitur, qui velit adactus ad illud infelix lignum, iam debilis, iam pravus et in foedum scapularum ac pectoris tuber elisus, cui multae moriendi causae etiam citra crucem fuerant, trahere animam tot tormenta tracturam?" – Letter 101, 12–14) Plautus and Plutarch are the two main sources for accounts of criminals carrying their own patibula to the upright stipes.Titus Maccius Plautus Miles gloriosus Mason Hammond, Arthur M. Mack – 1997 p. 109, "The patibulum (in the next line) was a crossbar which the convicted criminal carried on his shoulders, with his arms fastened to it, to the place for ... Hoisted up on an upright post, the patibulum became the crossbar of the cross"
Mass crucifixions followed the Third Servile War in 73–71 BC (the slave rebellion led by Spartacus), and other Roman civil wars in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. Crassus ordered the crucifixion of 6,000 of Spartacus' followers who had been hunted down and captured after the slaves were defeated in battle. Josephus says that in the siege that led to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, the Roman soldiers crucified Jewish captives before the walls of Jerusalem and out of anger and hatred amused themselves by nailing them in different positions.
In some cases, the condemned were forced to carry the crossbeam to the place of execution. A whole cross would weigh well over 135 kg (300 lb), but the crossbeam would not be as burdensome, weighing around 45 kg (100 lb). The Roman historian Tacitus records that the city of Rome had a specific place for carrying out executions, situated outside the Esquiline Gate, and had a specific area reserved for the execution of slaves by crucifixion. Upright posts would presumably be fixed permanently in that place, and the crossbeam, with the condemned person perhaps already nailed to it, would then be attached to the post.
The person executed may have been attached to the cross by rope, though nails and other sharp materials are mentioned in a passage by Josephus, where he states that at the Siege of Jerusalem (70 AD), "the soldiers out of rage and hatred, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the crosses, by way of jest". Objects used in the crucifixion of criminals, such as nails, were sought as amulets with perceived medicinal qualities.Mishna, Shabbath 6.10: see David W. Chapman, Ancient Jewish and Christian Perceptions of Crucifixion (Mohn Siebeck 2008 ), p. 182
While a crucifixion was an execution, it was also a humiliation, by making the condemned as vulnerable as possible. Although artists have traditionally depicted the figure on a cross with a loin cloth or a covering of the genitals, the person being crucified was usually stripped naked. Writings by Seneca the Younger state some victims suffered a stick forced upwards through their groin.Seneca, Dialogue "To Marcia on Consolation", in Moral Essays, 6.20.3, trans. John W. Basore, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1946) 2:69 Despite its frequent use by the Romans, the horrors of crucifixion did not escape criticism by some eminent Roman orators. Cicero, for example, described crucifixion as "a most cruel and disgusting punishment", and suggested that "the very mention of the cross should be far removed not only from a Roman citizen's body, but from his mind, his eyes, his ears". (citing Cicero, pro Rabirio Perduellionis Reo 5.16 ). Elsewhere he says, "It is a crime to bind a Roman citizen; to scourge him is a wickedness; to put him to death is almost parricide. What shall I say of crucifying him? So guilty an action cannot by any possibility be adequately expressed by any name bad enough for it."
Frequently, the legs of the person executed were broken or shattered with an iron club, an act called crurifragium, which was also frequently applied without crucifixion to slaves. This act hastened the death of the person but was also meant to deter those who observed the crucifixion from committing offenses.
Constantine I, the first Christian emperor, abolished crucifixion in the Roman Empire in 337 out of veneration for Jesus Christ, its most famous victim. Dictionary of Images and Symbols in Counselling By William Stewart 1998 , p. 120
According to Roman law, if a slave killed his or her owner, all of the owner's slaves would be crucified as punishment. Both men and women were crucified. Tacitus writes in his Annals that when Lucius Pedanius Secundus was murdered by a slave, some in the Senate tried to prevent the mass crucifixion of four hundred of his slaves because there were so many women and children, but in the end tradition prevailed and they were all executed.Tacitus. Annals, Book 14, . Although not conclusive evidence for female crucifixion by itself, the most ancient image of a Roman crucifixion may depict a crucified woman, whether real or imaginary. Crucifixion was such a gruesome and humiliating way to die that the subject was somewhat of a taboo in Roman culture, and few crucifixions were specifically documented. One of the only specific female crucifixions that are documented is that of Ida, a freedwoman (former slave) who was crucified by order of Tiberius. (2025). 9781439158395, Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781439158395
During the death march, the prisoner, probably Macall believes that the person would be given back his or her clothing following the scourging. still nude after the scourging, would be led through the most crowded streets bearing a titulus – a sign board proclaiming the prisoner's name and crime. Upon arrival at the place of execution, selected to be especially public, the convict would be stripped of any remaining clothing, then nailed to the cross naked. If the crucifixion took place in an established place of execution, the vertical beam ( stipes) might be permanently embedded in the ground. In this case, the condemned person's wrists would first be nailed to the patibulum, and then he or she would be hoisted off the ground with ropes to hang from the elevated patibulum while it was fastened to the stipes. Next the feet or ankles would be nailed to the upright stake. The 'nails' were tapered iron spikes approximately long, with a square shaft across. The titulus would also be fastened to the cross to notify onlookers of the person's name and crime as they hung on the cross, further maximizing the public impact.
There may have been considerable variation in the position in which prisoners were nailed to their crosses and how their bodies were supported while they died. Seneca the Younger recounts: "I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made in many different ways: some have their victims with head down to the ground; some impale their private parts; others stretch out their arms on the gibbet." One source claims that for Jews (apparently not for others), a man would be crucified with his back to the cross as is traditionally depicted, while a woman would be nailed facing her cross, probably with her back to onlookers, or at least with the stipes providing some semblance of modesty if viewed from the front. Such concessions were "unique" and not made outside a Jewish context. Several sources mention some sort of seat fastened to the stipes to help support the person's body,Justin Martyr Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew 91Irenaeus Against Heresies II.24Tertullian To the Nations I.12 thereby prolonging the person's suffering and humiliation. Justin Martyr calls the seat a cornu, or "horn," leading some scholars to believe it may have had a pointed shape designed to torment the crucified person.Barbet, 45; Zugibe, 57; Vassilios Tzaferis, "CrucifixionThe Archaeological Evidence," Biblical Archaeology Review 11.1 (Jan./Feb. 1985), 44–53 (p. 49) This would be consistent with Seneca's observation of victims with their private parts impaled.
In Roman-style crucifixion, the condemned could take up to a few days to die, but death was sometimes hastened by human action. "The attending Roman guards could leave the site only after the victim had died, and were known to precipitate death by means of deliberate fracturing of the tibia and/or fibula, spear stab wounds into the heart, sharp blows to the front of the chest, or a smoking fire built at the foot of the cross to asphyxiate the victim." The Romans sometimes broke the prisoner's legs to hasten death and usually forbade burial. On the other hand, the person was often deliberately kept alive as long as possible to prolong their suffering and humiliation, so as to provide the maximum deterrent effect. Corpses of the crucified were typically left on the crosses to decompose and be eaten by animals. (2025). 9780061778186, HarperCollins. ISBN 9780061778186
The corpus of hadith provides contradictory statements about the first use of crucifixion under Islamic rule, attributing it variously to Muhammad himself (for murder and robbery of a shepherd) or to the second caliph Umar (applied to two slaves who murdered their mistress). Classical Islamic jurisprudence applies the verse 5:33 chiefly to highway robbers, as a hadd (scripturally prescribed) punishment. The preference for crucifixion over the other punishments mentioned in the verse or for their combination (which Sadakat Kadri has called "Islam's equivalent of the hanging, drawing and quartering that medieval Europeans inflicted on traitors") (2025). 9780099523277, macmillan. ISBN 9780099523277 is subject to "complex and contested rules" in classical jurisprudence. Most scholars required crucifixion for highway robbery combined with murder, while others allowed execution by other methods for this scenario. The main methods of crucifixion are:
Most classical jurists limit the period of crucifixion to three days. Crucifixion involves affixing or impaling the body to a beam or a tree trunk. Various minority opinions also prescribed crucifixion as punishment for a number of other crimes. Cases of crucifixion under most of the legally prescribed categories have been recorded in the history of Islam, and prolonged exposure of crucified bodies was especially common for political and religious opponents.
In 1597, 26 Christian Martyrs were nailed to crosses at Nagasaki, Japan. Among those executed were Saints Paulo Miki, Philip of Jesus and Pedro Bautista, a Spanish Franciscan. The executions marked the beginning of a long history of Japanese Martyrs, which continued until its decriminalization in 1871.
Crucifixion was used as a punishment for prisoners of war during World War II. Ringer Edwards, an Australian prisoner of war, was crucified for killing cattle, along with two others. He survived 63 hours before being let down.
It has been reported that crucifixion was used in several cases against the Germany civil population of East Prussia when it was occupied by USSR forces at the end of World War II.Max Hastings, Armageddon: the Battle for Germany 1944–45,
Additionally, a piece of acacia wood was located between the bones and the head of the nail, presumably to keep the condemned from freeing his foot by sliding it over the nail. His legs were found broken, possibly to hasten his death. It is thought that because in earlier Roman times iron was valuable, the nails were removed from the dead body to conserve costs. According to Haas, this could help to explain why only one nail has been found, as the tip of the nail in question was bent in such a way that it could not be removed. Haas had also identified a scratch on the inner surface of the right radius bone of the forearm, close to the wrist. He deduced from the form of the scratch, as well as from the intact wrist bones, that a nail had been driven into the forearm at that position.
Many of Haas' findings have, however, been challenged. For instance, it was subsequently determined that the scratches in the wrist area were non-traumatic – and, therefore, not evidence of crucifixion – while reexamination of the heel bone revealed that the two heels were not nailed together, but rather separately to either side of the upright post of the cross.
In 2007, a possible case of a crucified body, with a round hole in a heel bone, possibly caused by a nail, was discovered in the Po Valley near
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In 2017 part of a crucified body, with a nail in the heel, was additionally discovered at
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Several people have been subjected to crucifixion in Saudi Arabia in the 2000s, although on occasion they were first beheaded and then crucified. In March 2013, a robber was set to be executed by being crucified for three days. However, the method was changed to death by firing squad. The Saudi Press Agency reported that the body of another individual was crucified after his execution in April 2019 as part of a crackdown on charges of terrorism.
Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 when he was 17 years old for taking part in an anti-government protest in Saudi Arabia during the Arab Spring." Saudi Arabia must immediately halt execution of children – UN rights experts urge". Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 22 September 2015. Retrieved 3 November 2017. In May 2014, Ali al-Nimr was sentenced to be publicly beheaded and crucified." When Beheading Won’t Do the Job, the Saudis Resort to Crucifixion". The Atlantic. 24 September 2015. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
Theoretically, crucifixion is still one of the Hadd punishments in Iran. If a crucified person were to survive three days of crucifixion, that person would be allowed to live. Execution by hanging is described as follows: "In execution by hanging, the prisoner will be hung on a hanging truss which should look like a cross, while his (her) back is toward the cross, and (s)he faces the direction of Mecca in, and his (her) legs are vertical and distant from the ground."
Sudan's penal code, based upon the government's interpretation of shari'a, includes execution followed by crucifixion as a penalty. When, in 2002, 88 people were sentenced to death for crimes relating to murder, armed robbery, and participating in ethnic clashes, Amnesty International wrote that they could be executed by either hanging or crucifixion.
On 30 April 2014, a total of seven public executions were carried out in Raqqa, northern Syria. The pictures, originally posted to Twitter by a student at Oxford University, were retweeted by a Twitter account owned by a known member of ISIL causing major media outlets to incorrectly attribute the origin of the post to the militant group. In most of these cases of crucifixion the victims are shot first then their bodies are displayed but there have also been reports of crucifixion preceding shootings or decapitations as well as a case where a man was said to have been "crucified alive for eight hours" with no indication of whether he died.
On 22 January 2014, Dmytro Bulatov, a Ukrainian anti-government activist and member of AutoMaidan, claimed to have been kidnapped by unknown persons "speaking in Russian accents" and tortured for a week. His captors kept him in the dark, beat him, cut off a piece of his ear, and nailed him to a cross. His captors ultimately left him in a forest outside Kyiv after forcing him to confess to being an United States spy and accepting money from the US Embassy in Ukraine to organize Euromaidan against then-President Viktor Yanukovych. Bulatov said he believed Russian secret services were responsible.
In 1997, the Ministry of Justice in the United Arab Emirates issued a statement that a court had sentenced two murderers to be crucified, to be followed by their executions the next day. A Ministry of Justice official later stated that the crucifixion sentence should be considered cancelled. The crucifixions were not carried out, and the convicts were instead executed by firing squad.
During the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Captain Vladyslav Pastukh of the Ukrainian 211th Pontoon Bridge Brigade crucified another member of the brigade by tying the soldier's hands to a wooden cross and the soldier's helmet to his left arm. He then took a picture of himself squatting in front of the cross with the soldier's body hanging from it. On 16 December 2024, Ukrainian defense minister Rustem Umerov ordered an immediate investigation into the incident as well as an investigation into other alleged abuse, extortion, and humiliation of soldiers of the 211th Pontoon Bridge Brigade by their commanding officers.
some cases, a crucifixion is simulated within a passion play, as in the ceremonial re-enactment that has been performed yearly in the town of Iztapalapa, on the outskirts of Mexico City, since 1833, and in the famous Oberammergau Passion Play. Also, since at least the mid-19th century, a group of flagellants in New Mexico, called Hermanos de Luz ("Brothers of Light"), have annually conducted reenactments of Christ's crucifixion during Holy Week, in which a penitent is tied—but not nailed—to a cross. This tradition is sometimes practiced in other regions of the United States, such as in Appalachia, where members of Protestant churches stage mock crucifixions wherein worshippers hang from straps on the crosses during Good Friday re-enactments.
The Catholic Church frowns upon self-crucifixion as a form of devotion: "Penitential practices leading to self-crucifixion with nails are not to be encouraged." Despite this, the practice persists in the Philippines, where some Catholics are voluntarily, non-lethally crucified for a limited time on Good Friday to imitate the sufferings of Christ. Pre-sterilised nails are driven through the palm of the hand between the bones, while there is a footrest to which the feet are nailed. Rolando del Campo, a carpenter in Pampanga, vowed to be crucified every Good Friday for 15 years if God would carry his wife through a difficult childbirth, (dead link 6 April 2023) while in San Pedro Cutud, Ruben Enaje has been crucified 35 times. The Filipino Catholic Church has repeatedly voiced disapproval of crucifixions and self-flagellation, while the government has noted that it cannot deter devotees. The Department of Health recommends that participants in the rites should have tetanus shots and that the nails used should be sterilized.
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