It is interesting to note that the wounds on the body on the Shroud of Turin, which many believe to be Christ’s burial cloth, show that the nails were driven through the man’s wrists — so if the Shroud is a medieval forgery, then the counterfeiter had physiological insights many centuries ahead of his time.
In 1968 archaelogists found the first physical evidence of a crucifixion, in Jerusalem. The skeleton of a man included a heel bone with a nail embedded within it and fragments of wood at the tip of the nail. His arms and hands were not injured, so he probably was tied to the crossbeam. His feet would have been nailed to the side of the cross. So our image of the technicalities involving Jesus’ crucifixion is most likely historically inaccurate.
A sample of one? I think it has been pretty well established that the Romans nailed people to crosses and that there were difference in the methods, as well. I’ll have to investigate this some more.
See: Part 13: The symbolic power of the cross | The Southern Cross