We know already what the instrument of torture was like, the Roman “flagrum, ” the thongs of which had two balls of lead or a small bone, the “talus” of a sheep, at some distance from their end. There are plenty of the marks of this on the shroud. They are scattered over the whole body, from the shoulders to the lower part of the legs. Most of them are to be seen on the back portion which proves that Jesus was bound with His face to the column, with His hands above Him, for there are no marks on the forearms which are quite visible. These could not have failed to receive some blows, if they had been bound lower down. A considerable number of marks are however to be found on the chest.
One must add that only those blows have left a mark which produced an excoriation or a contused wound. All those which only caused ecchymosis (a severe bruise) have left no mark on the shroud. Altogether I have counted more than 100, perhaps 120. This means, if there were two thongs, that Our Lord received about sixty strokes apart from those which have left no mark.
All the wounds have the same shape, like a little halter about three centimetres long. The two circles represent the balls of lead, while the line joining them is the mark of the thong.
They are nearly in pairs of two parallel wounds, which makes me think that each flagrum had two thongs, and they are laid out in the form of a fan, the centre of which would be the executioner’s hand. On the thorax they are oblique, horizontal on the loins, and oblique once more on the legs. At this level, one can see in the frontal image long oblique furrows (similar to the halter-like wounds at the back), which must have been produced by the ends of the thongs. Having struck the calves of the legs with their leaden balls, they have turned round the outer edge of the leg and lashed the front with their points.
We may assume that during the scourging Our Lord was completely naked, for the halter-like wounds are to be seen all over the pelvic region, which would otherwise have been protected by the subligaculum, and they are as deep as on the rest of the body.
Finally, there must have been two executioners. It is possible that they were not of the same height, for the obliqueness of the blows is not the same on each side.
Painters have been content with, at the most, vague, formless excoriations; is there one of them who could have imagined and realised these minute details?