Seems appropriate to mention this one from the Independent (South Africa):

The image of the crucifixion, one of the most powerful emblems of Christianity, may be erroneous, according to a study which says there is no evidence that Jesus was crucified in this manner.

Around the world, in churches, in Christian homes, on crucifixes worn as pendants, in innumerable books, paintings and movies, Jesus Christ is seen nailed to the cross by his hands and feet, with his head upwards and arms outstretched.

But a paper published by Britain's Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) says this image has never been substantiated in fact.

"The evidence demonstrates that people were crucified in different postures and affixed to crosses using a variety of means," said one of the authors, Piers Mitchell of Imperial College London.

"Victims were not necessarily positioned head up and nailed through the feet from front to back, as is the imagery in Christian churches."

The authors do not express any doubt on the act of Jesus's crucifixion itself. But they note that the few eyewitness descriptions available of crucifixions in the 1st Century AD show the Romans had a broad and cruel imagination.

The cross could be erected "in any one of a range of orientations", with the victim sometimes head-up, or sometimes head-down.

There is no detailed account of the method of Jesus's crucifixion in the four Gospels of the Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).

And only one piece of archaeological evidence has ever been found about a crucifixion, says Mitchell. This case entails a young Jewish man, whose inscription on an ossuary (a type of tomb), found near Giv'at ha-Mivtar in Israel, suggests his name was probably Yehonanan ben Hagkol.

The clue to his demise comes from an 11.5cm iron nail that had been hammered through one of his heels, attaching it to the side of the cross. But there are no signs of any nail holes in the bones of the wrist or the forearm.

Over the past 150 years, there have been at least 10 books and studies to try to understand the physical causes of Jesus's death.

These explorations have yielded a wide range of hypotheses, from heart failure and pulmonary embolism to asphyxia and shock induced by falling blood pressure.

Given the uncertainty as to exactly how he was crucified, the answer may only ever come if some new archaeological evidence or piece of writing emerges from the shadows of the past, it says.

Now when this story first came out a couple of weeks ago, I didn't give it a second thought. But as the season has had various folks reading various accounts to me in various contexts, and as I have read various accounts myself, it sounds like the 'lack of a detailed account' is begging the question big time. True, there is no actual account of the specific method in the four Gospels, but what IS there pretty much points to the traditional image. If Jesus were crucified upside down, e.g., there would be no need for an 'extension' when the bystander offered him the vinegar-soaked sponge (a tale which appears both Matthew and Mark; in (the likely later) Luke the soldiers offer him 'sour wine' ... no extension mentioned; by John, it's offered on a bit of hyssop). Similarly, if we accept the account in John, the 'breaking of the legs' also doesn't make sense in an 'upside down' context (you only break the legs to make upright crucifixion victims die more quickly). The image was also apparently well-known enough outside of Christian circles that it could be parodied in that Alexamenos graffito ...