Not seeking to debate more...just FYI...from a blacksmith/history buff view..
The Romans had a tool, an otherwise straight bar with claws, bent slightly to allow leverage... then to a wood block would proivide a height adjustment for pulling over a hand or arm.
At various demonstrations, at the NY State fair etc., I would make crucifixion style nails and hand them out to and pastors oo Bible teachers or
Sunday School teachers in attendance. They make great teaching aids.
Roman nails were of course, of a square shaft, which holds much better in wood than any round nail. A square nail when driven in, breaks the grain and pulls the broken grain inward with it...that grain then resists the nail being pulled.
They often used pieces of wood to act as "washers" so the nail heads would not pull through the flesh.
Evidently, the Romans did not value their iron nails near as much as we may think. As the Romans abandoned the Antonine wall
In Scotland, they buried hundreds of thousands of nails.
They buried them, so the wild Calidonian tribes wouild not easily forge the nails into weapons to use against the Romans, further south !
I had opportunity, so I bought a set of 3 of those nails which were dug up.
Being iron, they lasted until today. Had they been steel as they are today, they would have rusted away long ago.
https://www.scran.ac.uk/packs/exhibitions/learning_materials/webs/56/Inch.htm
