Celebrating Easter-tide at the local Church of England hereabouts, much like you as I gazed at the cross I couldn't help wondering how Romans made them... fresh as I was from my efforts at wood-work on the drone.
Crucifixion was nothing new and also used widely ~ we've all seen Spartacus ~ by Romans, as by any number of peoples before them.
Digging a little deeper though and working from left to right and top to bottom, the 15th-century depiction shows what I think is a simple butt-joint and a cantilevered pair of arms that, frankly, seems unlikely. Without a joist-bracket at the rear (and stores would have been closed at the weekend), this would produce a saggy set of cantilevers and Romans didn't do saggy.
The next depicts something similar if the grain is to be believed, and would have to be hewn from a single block ~ which is getting expensive ~ or cast as a mono-bloc in bronze, which they generally saved for helmets.
More practical is the next, which features a transverse attached to an upright, but I feel that the Romans would not have liked the fact it didn't fit flush. To make it do so requires a lap-joint, which you'd not want to be messing around with on the day.
Though apparently Romans re-used the upright, with only the transverse needing to be provided for the occasion... in which event it may have come with a built-in joint. Images of the cross being carried all appear to use an element of artistic licence, as this would normally have been done with only the transverse for that reason.
It begs the question of how you got people up there, tho' a painting in the church in Leuven suggests it was done prone, with the whole assembly raised afterward and presumably dropped in a hole at the same time to secure... the sort of stands used for Christmas trees not having been invented yet.
The more likely construction appears in the last illustration, a straightforward cross-piece parked on an upright, tho' again you'd wonder how it stayed there... albeit among your least concerns at the time. It does also provide space for a plaque, as seen in the pic, for premium subscribers.
In the event we shall likely never know as, me aside, few people wonder how the coffin was put together at a funeral. In the event Christians would adopt the outline so in evidence today, not least because it would be hard to build a religion on the back of a letter 'T'.
Anyhow, I'm off upstairs now to deliver this from the balcony. But before I go, who's the guy in the suit at top left? A medieval Where's Wally?
Ed. After delivering one funeral oration, the author was asked if he did stand-up?
