The Descent from the Cross” and Roman Crucifixion Practice

While various aspects of crucifixion have been surveyed the last decades, there is a remarkable silence about the descent from the cross. In art we see various approaches to take down a crucified individual, most known “The Descent from the Cross” as a devotional station of the cross, but where do we find ancient sources on individuals being taken down from a cross? In this article, I want to point out that we know very little about this aspect of crucifixion. Often individuals were left to rot on the cross, but for Jewish people it was common to bury them, based on Deuteronomistic Law. There few sources we have, seldom give more information about how an individual was taken down than that someone was taken down. In effect, this article shows that we know very little about the subject.