This allowed a tomb to be re-used. These skeletons were of two generations of a wealthy family and of the seventeen people buried, one had been crucified. He was a 24 to 28 year old male. The nail was preserved only because it hit a hard knot when it was pounded into the olive wood upright on a cross. The olive wood knot was so hard that, as the blows on the nail became heavier, the end of the nail bent and curled.
Some olive wood remains on the end of the nail.
When it came time for the dead victim to be removed from the cross, executioners could not pull out this nail curled in the wood. The only way to remove the body was to amputate the feet with an axe. The feet, the nail and a wooden plaque, the titulus on which was written the charge against him, remain attached to each other. The nail had penetrated both heel bones. His limb bones were fine and slender.