Before our era, executions were particularly cruel. The Chinese turned out to be the most “inventive” in terms of cruel bullying; they tried to keep up with them in other countries, inventing their own “trademark” executions.
Horrible Chinese executions
Perhaps no one could surpass the Chinese in inventing cruel executions. One of the most exotic ways of punishing criminals is to stretch it over growing shoots of young bamboo. The shoots grew through the human body within a few days, causing incredible suffering to the person being executed. It was in China that a person who did not report a criminal could be cut in half, and it was there that they first began to bury people in the ground alive.Executions in ancient China were particularly cruel. Executioners in China often sawed women for any reason. It is known that cooks were sawn only because the whiteness of the rice they cooked did not match the color of the Master’s wisdom. The women were stripped and, having secured sharp saws between their legs, they were hung by their hands on rings. They could not hang in a taut state for a long time; it was impossible to sit without moving and on the edge of a saw. Thus, the cooks sawed themselves from the womb to the very chest.
Executioner is one of the most terrible professions. To increase the severity of punishment, Chinese judges used execution, which was called “the implementation of five types of punishment.” The criminal was first branded, then his legs and arms were cut off, and he was beaten to death with sticks. The head of the executed person was put on public display in the market.
List of the most terrible executions
The rulers of different countries established the death penalty for a variety of crimes. Often executions were invented by the judges or executioners themselves. They were the most cruel before our era.
In China, they carried out terrible executions at the stadium. It must be said that European countries were less inventive in terms of executions. Europeans preferred quick, “painless” killing.
"Punishment by the Wall"
Execution called "punishment by the wall" was invented in Ancient Egypt. In essence, this is the immuring of a person by Egyptian priests in a dungeon wall. The person executed in this way simply died from suffocation.
In ancient Egypt they came up with very sophisticated executions. In the opera “Aida” you can see a scene of such an execution. For the committed state crime, Radomes and Aida were doomed to a slow death in a stone tomb.
Crucifixion
For the first time, execution by crucifixion was used by the Phoenicians. After some time, this method was adopted from them by the Carthaginians, and then by the Romans.
Crucifixion is the most famous execution. The Israelis and Romans considered death on the cross to be the most shameful. Hardened criminals and slaves were often executed this way. Before the crucifixion, the person was undressed, leaving only a loincloth. He was beaten with leather whips or freshly cut rods, after which he was forced to carry the cross himself to the place of crucifixion. Having dug the cross into the ground by the road outside the city or on a hill, the person was lifted with ropes and nailed to it. Sometimes the convict's legs were first broken.
Impalement
Execution by impalement was invented in Assyria. In this way, residents of rebellious cities and women were punished for committing an abortion, that is, for infanticide.
Impalement is a common method of execution. In Assyria, execution was carried out in two ways. In one version, the convict was pierced with a stake through the chest, in the other, the tip of the stake passed through the body through the anus. People who were tormented on stakes were often depicted on bas-reliefs as an edification. Later, this execution began to be used by the peoples of the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
"Trough torture"
One of the most terrible tortures is “trough torture.” The person was placed between two troughs fitted one next to the other, leaving only his head and legs outside. The executed person was forced to eat; if he refused, they pierced his eyes with needles. After eating, milk and honey were poured into the unfortunate person’s mouth, and the face was smeared with the same mixture. The trough was turned towards the sun so that it always shone into the person’s eyes.
A simple trough can become a terrible weapon of torture. After some time, worms appeared in human sewage, crawled into the intestines and ate the condemned person from the inside. When he finally died and the trough was removed, underneath were entrails teeming with various creatures. The meat was already completely eaten.
The most terrible and painful execution
The most terrible execution was invented in China and was used during the reign of the Qing dynasty. Its name is “Liyin-Chi” or “sea pike bites”. It was also called “death by a thousand cuts.” Every year, fifteen to twenty people were executed in this way, and only high-ranking corrupt officials.
“Sea pike bites” is the most terrible Chinese execution in the world. The peculiarity of “Lin-Chi” is in stretching out the execution over time. If a criminal was sentenced to six months or even a year of torment, the executioner was obliged to extend it for exactly this period. The essence of execution is cutting off small parts from a person’s body. For example, having cut off one phalanx of a finger, a professional executioner cauterized the wound and sent the condemned man to his cell. The next morning the next phalanx was cut off and cauterization was performed again. This went on every day.
Suicide was considered a way to avoid a terrible execution. It was important to prevent the suicide of the criminal or his premature death. For this, the executioner himself could be executed. By the end of such a sophisticated execution, the body of the recently groomed official turned into a piece of smoked, quivering meat. Physical suffering in this execution was combined with psychological, moral and status. Not only executions are terrible, but also diseases. Some believe that such diseases are given to people as punishment for their sins.
Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, execution was considered a preferable punishment compared to prison because being in prison was a slow death. The stay in prison was paid for by relatives, and they themselves often asked that the culprit be killed.
Convicts were not kept in prisons - it was too expensive. If relatives had money, they could take their loved one for support (usually he sat in an earthen pit). But a tiny part of society was able to afford it.
Therefore, the main method of punishment for minor crimes (theft, insulting an official, etc.) was the stocks. The most common type of last is “kanga” (or “jia”). It was used very widely, since it did not require the state to build a prison, and also prevented escape.
Sometimes, in order to further reduce the cost of punishment, several prisoners were chained in this neck block. But even in this case, relatives or compassionate people had to feed the criminal.
Each judge considered it his duty to invent his own reprisals against criminals and prisoners. The most common were: sawing off the foot (first they sawed off one foot, the second time the repeat offender caught the other), removal of the kneecaps, cutting off the nose, cutting off the ears, branding.
In an effort to make the punishment more severe, the judges came up with an execution called “carry out five types of punishment.” The criminal should have been branded, his arms or legs cut off, beaten to death with sticks, and his head put on display in the market for everyone to see.
In Chinese tradition, beheading was considered a more severe form of execution than strangulation, despite the prolonged torment inherent in strangulation.
The Chinese believed that the human body is a gift from his parents, and therefore returning a dismembered body into oblivion is extremely disrespectful to the ancestors. Therefore, at the request of relatives, and more often for a bribe, other types of executions were used.
Removal. The criminal was tied to a pole, a rope was wrapped around his neck, the ends of which were in the hands of the executioners. They slowly twist the rope with special sticks, gradually strangling the convict.
The strangulation could last a very long time, since the executioners at times loosened the rope and allowed the almost strangled victim to take several convulsive breaths, and then tightened the noose again.
"Cage", or "standing stocks" (Li-chia) - the device for this execution is a neck block, which was fixed on top of bamboo or wooden poles tied into a cage, at a height of approximately 2 meters. The convicted person was placed in a cage, and bricks or tiles were placed under his feet, and then they were slowly removed.
The executioner removed the bricks, and the man hung with his neck pinched by the block, which began to choke him, this could continue for months until all the stands were removed.
Lin-Chi - "death by a thousand cuts" or "sea pike bites" - the most terrible execution by cutting small pieces from the victim's body over a long period of time.
Such execution followed for high treason and parricide. Ling-chi, for the purpose of intimidation, was performed in public places with a large crowd of onlookers.
For capital crimes and other serious offenses, there were 6 classes of punishment. The first was called lin-chi. This punishment was applied to traitors, parricides, murderers of brothers, husbands, uncles and mentors.
The criminal was tied to a cross and cut into either 120, or 72, or 36, or 24 pieces. In the presence of extenuating circumstances, his body was cut into only 8 pieces as a sign of imperial favor.
The criminal was cut into 24 pieces as follows: eyebrows were cut off with 1 and 2 blows; 3 and 4 - shoulders; 5 and 6 - mammary glands; 7 and 8 - arm muscles between the hand and elbow; 9 and 10 - arm muscles between the elbow and shoulder; 11 and 12 - flesh from the thighs; 13 and 14 - calves; 15 - a blow pierced the heart; 16 - the head was cut off; 17 and 18 - hands; 19 and 20 - the remaining parts of the hands; 21 and 22 - feet; 23 and 24 - legs. They cut it into 8 pieces like this: cut off the eyebrows with 1 and 2 blows; 3 and 4 - shoulders; 5 and 6 - mammary glands; 7 - pierced the heart with a blow; 8 - the head was cut off.
But there was a way to avoid these monstrous types of execution - for a large bribe. For a very large bribe, the jailer could give a criminal awaiting death in an earthen pit a knife or even poison. But it is clear that few could afford such expenses.
In the electric chair, the ancient world was especially inventive in terms of sophisticated torture and punishment. The types of executions used in the East were especially terrible, and Ancient China distinguished itself in this most of all. It is the Celestial Empire that holds the palm in the invention of executions in the world.
Sadistic executions of ancient China
In ancient times, people in the Celestial Empire could be executed without trial for the most minor sins. Once the cooks were sawed in half just because the rice they cooked did not satisfy the owner. The women, stripped naked, were hung by their arms from rings, and a saw was placed between their legs.
It was impossible to hang on tense arms for a long time, and it was also difficult to sit on a sharp saw for a long time - thus, the women sawed themselves.
In general, women in China could be sawed for any reason.
High-ranking corrupt officials were executed with a terrible execution called “pike bites” or “death by a thousand cuts.” Small pieces of flesh were gradually cut off from the criminal over the course of a year or six months. To prevent bleeding, the wounds were cauterized with a hot iron. In such a situation, suicide seemed to be the highest good, but the executioners kept a vigilant eye on the condemned, not allowing him to die prematurely. Terrible physical suffering was accompanied by moral humiliation.
Suicide is simply a gift of fate, in the case when a piece of flesh is cut off from a person And today in China it is not considered a great value. A “suitable” person can easily be kidnapped on the street and dismantled for organs. State criminals are subjected to almost medieval torture, and women are castrated using laser beams.
Terrible executions of the Ancient East
The Ancient East invented executions. Here is a rough list of some of them:
- Punishment by the wall.
- Crucifixion.
- Impalement.
- Torture with a trough.
Brutal executions were also practiced in Ancient Egypt. The method of killing, which was called “punishment by the wall,” consisted in the fact that the criminal was walled up alive, as a result of which he died from suffocation.
Crucifixion was first used in Ancient Phenicia, then the Carthaginians borrowed this method of execution from the Phoenicians. After the Punic Wars, the Romans began to execute people this way. was considered the most despicable - only slaves or hardened criminals died this way. Roman citizens and other people of the noble class were killed with a sword, which was used to cut off the head quickly and painlessly.
At first they impaled people only in Assyria. This type of execution was applied to women who had abortions and to rioters. As a result of the conquests of the Assyrian empire, this type of execution spread throughout the Mediterranean.
The trough execution was one of the most terrible. The body of the condemned man was placed between two troughs, but the head remained outside. The criminal was force-fed by pouring liquid food down his throat. Over time, worms appeared in the feces, which ate the body of the unfortunate man alive.
Muslim extremists of the modern East execute their captives no less brutally. The bloody relay race continues and there is no limit in sight.
Horrible Tortures and Executions of Medieval Europe
European culture was not so creative when it came to torture and execution. execution methods were usually imported from the East. Nevertheless, European justice could hardly be called humane.
The following types of execution were used:
- burn alive at the stake;
- boil alive;
- excoriation;
- bury alive;
- wheeling;
- decapitation;
- hanging;
- cut off ears or hands;
- blindness;
- quartering;
- tearing by horses;
- drowning;
- stoning;
- crucifixion
Burning at the stake was a punishment for heresy, but in England this was the punishment for female infidelity. Counterfeiters were boiled alive in cauldrons of boiling oil or tar. A particularly cruel type of execution was when the convict was first placed in a vat of cold water, and then the water was heated to a boil. The skin was torn off from dangerous state criminals and careless doctors, and they could remove it not only from a living person, but also from a corpse.
For significant theft, children were buried alive, and for petty theft, hands were chopped off. Also, for petty theft or fraud, an ear or ears could be cut off. A repeat offender was already subject to the death penalty. Only noble gentlemen who could not be killed for any reason were blinded. Quartering was used as a punishment for high treason, but only men were executed in this way, and women were burned in this case.
Video about the worst executions in the world
Drowning was a punishment for swearing and cursing. Ripping by horses, stoning and crucifixion were rare forms of justice. The most humane methods of execution were hanging and beheading - the latter survived into modern times in the form of the guillotine.
In modern Europe it is difficult to find even traces of past atrocities, because any type of torture and the death penalty is strictly prohibited. In the vast majority of European countries, the maximum penalty is life imprisonment.
We can only be grateful for the fact that gloomy torture and executions are a thing of the distant past, and in modern times they can only be found in backward countries.
One day - one truth" url="https://diletant.media/one-day/25301868/">The world knows dozens, if not hundreds of brutal executions. The ingenuity of man in the matter of reprisals against his own kind is amazing. Special engineering inventions, study of the characteristics of living nature, deep knowledge of human anatomy and psychology. All this was used for one purpose - to cause maximum suffering to the victim.
Execution with bamboo shoots
This execution or torture is often cited as a textbook example of Eastern cruelty. Back in the 19th century, some sources mentioned a similar execution, which was allegedly common in Southeast Asia and was carried out with the help of palm shoots. But for the first time such an execution was discussed publicly after the Second World War. Among American soldiers who visited Japanese concentration camps, there were legends about executioners who tied their victims over young or freshly cut bamboo shoots. The stems allegedly grew right through human flesh, bringing terrible suffering.
"MythBusters" tested the theoretical possibility of this execution
However, there is still no documentary evidence of such cruelty. However, the authors of the popular science program “MythBusters” tested the theoretical possibility of this execution. As the experimenters found out, the sprout can actually pierce through a mannequin made of ballistic gelatin (this material is comparable in resistance to human flesh).
Episode of the MythBusters program about the “bamboo execution”
Skafism (self-dealing)
Scaphism can be considered one of the most painful and terrible types of execution that a person could ever imagine. This may be why scaphism is often described in the literature. The name of the execution was given by Plutarch (“skafe” from ancient Greek is translated as “boat”, “trough”). In his work “The Life of Artaxerxes,” he writes that the Persian king sentenced the Greek ruler Mithridates to a terrible execution.
Skafism can be considered one of the most painful and terrible types of execution
Hanging, drawing and quartering
The “triple plague” is well known from numerous English historical sources. The execution was first carried out in the 13th century, enshrined in law in the 14th, and was last carried out at the beginning of the 19th. The sequence of actions was strictly defined by law and, with rare exceptions, was strictly observed.
The first execution was carried out in the 13th century, enshrined in law in the 14th
The criminal was tied to a wooden frame or fence and dragged to the place of execution behind a horse. There was a partial hanging (the victim was not allowed to die). This was followed by gutting, beheading and quartering. Sometimes castration and burning of entrails were added to the above list. After the execution, the head and body parts were exhibited in different parts of London or even transported for display to several cities across the country. Severe punishment was imposed on traitors, rebels, and people who committed a crime against the king. For example, about 300 participants in the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion in the 17th century suffered a painful death in this way. The “triple penalty” was also applied to the Scottish independence fighter William Wallace. The famous Guy Fawkes was also sentenced to such a terrible execution. However, he managed to escape the death torture by committing suicide. The conspirator jumped from the scaffold with a noose around his neck and strangled himself before he fell into the hands of the executioners. The "triple penalty" was abolished as a punishment at the end of the 19th century after numerous efforts by legislators.
Ling-Chi
From Chinese, the phrase “ling chi” is translated as “death by a thousand cuts.” This public execution has been used since the tenth century and was officially banned only in 1905. She could be appointed as punishment for crimes against the state, brutal murders, and even for insulting a teacher. Documentary evidence of the use of ling chi has been preserved - photographs from the late 19th - early 20th centuries. However, there were no clear rules. First of all, it is unclear how often the victim was killed before ritual desecration began. Scientists do not have a consensus on the scale of the dismemberment. In some cases, the execution ended with the quartering of the body, burning of the corpse and scattering of the ashes to the wind. The duration of the execution could also vary depending on a number of factors. The killing took from 15 minutes to three days. In addition, before the procedure began, the criminal could be given opium so that he would not lose consciousness during the torture process.
Death flights
In July 2015, a court in Argentina is scheduled to sentence 60 people involved in the “death flight” case. This process culminates a series of high-profile trials of representatives of the military junta that ruled the country in the mid-70s and early 80s.
Death flights were also used during the Algerian War
In Argentine history, the period was called the "Dirty War" as dictator Jorge Videla initiated repression of his political opponents. After the fall of the regime, former military pilot Adolfo Silingo admitted that he piloted planes from which security forces dropped drug-addled prisoners into the ocean. He personally became an accomplice in the murder of 30 people. The “death flights” were led by a high-ranking military commander, Alfredo Astiz, nicknamed the “Blonde Angel of Death.” Before execution, or rather, extrajudicial execution, prisoners were told that exile awaited them and were forced to vigorously express joy about this. The pilot's interview marked the beginning of a phenomenon known as the Silingo effect. His confession was followed by other public repentances of the executioners and high-profile trials on both sides of the Atlantic. Death flights were also used by French troops during the Algerian War.
Chinese bamboo torture
A notorious method of terrible Chinese execution throughout the world. Perhaps a legend, because to this day not a single documentary evidence has survived that this torture was actually used.
Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants on Earth. Some of its Chinese varieties can grow a full meter in a day. Some historians believe that the deadly bamboo torture was used not only by the ancient Chinese, but also by the Japanese military during World War II.
Bamboo grove. (pinterest.com)
How it works?
1) Sprouts of living bamboo are sharpened with a knife to form sharp “spears”;
2) The victim is suspended horizontally, with his back or stomach, over a bed of young pointed bamboo;
3) The bamboo quickly grows high, pierces the skin of the martyr and grows through his abdominal cavity, the person dies for a very long time and painfully.
Like torture with bamboo, the “iron maiden” is considered by many researchers to be a terrible legend. Perhaps these metal sarcophagi with sharp spikes inside only frightened the people under investigation, after which they confessed to anything.
"Iron Maiden"
The “Iron Maiden” was invented at the end of the 18th century, i.e. already at the end of the Catholic Inquisition.
"Iron Maiden". (pinterest.com)
How it works?
1) The victim is stuffed into the sarcophagus and the door is closed;
2) The spikes driven into the inner walls of the “iron maiden” are quite short and do not pierce the victim, but only cause pain. The investigator, as a rule, receives a confession in a matter of minutes, which the arrested person only has to sign;
3) If the prisoner shows fortitude and continues to remain silent, long nails, knives and rapiers are pushed through special holes in the sarcophagus. The pain becomes simply unbearable;
4) The victim never admits to what she had done, so she was locked in a sarcophagus for a long time, where she died from loss of blood;
5) Some Iron Maiden models had spikes at eye level to poke them out.
The name of this torture comes from the Greek “scaphium”, which means “trough”. Scaphism was popular in ancient Persia. During the torture, the victim, most often a prisoner of war, was devoured alive by various insects and their larvae who were partial to human flesh and blood.
Skafism. (pinterest.com)
How it works?
1) The prisoner is placed in a shallow trough and wrapped in chains.
2) He is force-fed large quantities of milk and honey, which causes the victim to have profuse diarrhea, which attracts insects.
3) The prisoner, having shit himself and smeared with honey, is allowed to float in a trough in a swamp, where there are many hungry creatures.
4) The insects immediately begin their meal, with the living flesh of the martyr as the main course.
Pear of suffering
This cruel tool was used to punish abortionists, liars and homosexuals. The device was inserted into the vagina for women or the anus for men. When the executioner turned the screw, the “petals” opened, tearing the flesh and bringing unbearable torture to the victims. Many then died from blood poisoning.
A pear of suffering. (pinterest.com)
How it works?
1) A tool consisting of pointed pear-shaped leaf-shaped segments is inserted into the client’s desired body hole;
2) The executioner little by little turns the screw on the top of the pear, while the “leaf” segments bloom inside the martyr, causing hellish pain;
3) After the pear is completely opened, the offender receives internal injuries incompatible with life and dies in terrible agony, if he has not already fallen into unconsciousness.
copper bull
The design of this death unit was developed by the ancient Greeks, or, to be more precise, by the coppersmith Perillus, who sold his terrible bull to the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris, who simply loved to torture and kill people in unusual ways.
A living person was pushed inside the copper statue through a special door. And then Phalaris first tested the unit on its creator - the greedy Perilla. Subsequently, Phalaris himself was roasted in a bull.
Copper bull. (pinterest.com)
How it works?
1) The victim is closed in a hollow copper statue of a bull;
2) A fire is lit under the bull’s belly;
3) The victim is roasted alive;
4) The structure of the bull is such that the cries of the martyr come from the mouth of the statue, like a bull’s roar;
5) Jewelry and amulets were made from the bones of the executed, which were sold at bazaars and were in great demand.
Torture by rats was very popular in ancient China. However, we will look at the rat punishment technique developed by the leader of the 16th century Dutch Revolution, Diedrick Sonoy.
Torture by rats. (pinterest.com)
How it works?
1) The stripped naked martyr is placed on a table and tied;
2) Large, heavy cages with hungry rats are placed on the prisoner’s stomach and chest. The bottom of the cells is opened using a special valve;
3) Hot coals are placed on top of the cages to stir up the rats;
4) Trying to escape the heat of hot coals, rats gnaw their way through the flesh of the victim.
Cradle of Judas
The Judas Cradle was one of the most torturous torture machines in the arsenal of the Suprema - the Spanish Inquisition. Victims usually died from infection, due to the fact that the pointed seat of the torture machine was never disinfected. The Cradle of Judas, as an instrument of torture, was considered “loyal” because it did not break bones or tear ligaments.
Cradle of Judas. (pinterest.com)
How it works?
1) The victim, whose hands and feet are tied, is seated on the top of a pointed pyramid;
2) The top of the pyramid is thrust into the anus or vagina;
3) Using ropes, the victim is gradually lowered lower and lower;
4) The torture continues for several hours or even days until the victim dies from powerlessness and pain, or from blood loss due to rupture of soft tissues.
Rack
Probably the most famous and unrivaled death machine of its kind called the “rack”. It was first tested around 300 AD. e. on the Christian martyr Vincent of Zaragoza.
Anyone who survived the rack could no longer use their muscles and became a helpless vegetable.
Rack. (pinterest.com)
How it works?
1. This instrument of torture is a special bed with rollers at both ends, around which ropes are wound to hold the victim’s wrists and ankles. As the rollers rotated, the ropes pulled in opposite directions, stretching the body;
2. Ligaments in the victim’s arms and legs are stretched and torn, bones pop out of their joints.
3. Another version of the rack was also used, called strappado: it consisted of 2 pillars dug into the ground and connected by a crossbar. The interrogated person's hands were tied behind his back and lifted by a rope tied to his hands. Sometimes a log or other weights were attached to his bound legs. At the same time, the arms of the person raised on the rack were turned back and often came out of their joints, so that the convict had to hang on his outstretched arms. They were on the rack from several minutes to an hour or more. This type of rack was used most often in Western Europe.
4. In Russia, a suspect raised on the rack was beaten on the back with a whip and “put to the fire,” that is, burning brooms were passed over the body.
5. In some cases, the executioner broke the ribs of a man hanging on a rack with red-hot pincers.
Shiri (camel cap)
A monstrous fate awaited those whom the Ruanzhuans (a union of nomadic Turkic-speaking peoples) took into slavery. They destroyed the slave's memory with a terrible torture - putting a shiri on the victim's head. Usually this fate befell young men captured in battle.
Shiri. (pinterest.com)
How it works?
1. First, the slaves' heads were shaved bald, and every hair was carefully scraped out at the root.
2. The executors slaughtered the camel and skinned its carcass, first of all, separating its heaviest, dense nuchal part.
3. Having divided it into pieces, it was immediately pulled in pairs over the shaved heads of the prisoners. These pieces stuck to the heads of the slaves like a plaster. This meant putting on the shiri.
4. After putting on the shiri, the neck of the doomed person was chained in a special wooden block so that the subject could not touch his head to the ground. In this form, they were taken away from crowded places so that no one would hear their heartbreaking screams, and they were thrown there in an open field, with their hands and feet tied, in the sun, without water and without food.
5. The torture lasted 5 days.
6. Only a few remained alive, and the rest died not from hunger or even from thirst, but from unbearable, inhuman torment caused by drying, shrinking rawhide camel skin on the head. Inexorably shrinking under the rays of the scorching sun, the width squeezed and squeezed the slave's shaved head like an iron hoop. Already on the second day, the shaved hair of the martyrs began to sprout. Coarse and straight Asian hair sometimes grew into the rawhide; in most cases, finding no way out, the hair curled and went back into the scalp, causing even greater suffering. Within a day the man lost his mind. Only on the fifth day did the Ruanzhuans come to check whether any of the prisoners had survived. If at least one of the tortured people was found alive, it was considered that the goal had been achieved.
7. Anyone who underwent such a procedure either died, unable to withstand the torture, or lost his memory for life, turned into a mankurt - a slave who does not remember his past.
8. The skin of one camel was enough for five or six widths.
Spanish water torture
In order to best carry out the procedure of this torture, the accused was placed on one of the types of racks or on a special large table with a rising middle part. After the victim's arms and legs were tied to the edges of the table, the executioner began work in one of several ways. One of these methods involved forcing the victim to swallow a large amount of water using a funnel, then hitting the distended and arched abdomen.
Water torture. (pinterest.com)
Another form involved placing a cloth tube down the victim's throat through which water was slowly poured, causing the victim to swell and suffocate. If this was not enough, the tube was pulled out, causing internal damage, and then inserted again and the process repeated. Sometimes cold water torture was used. In this case, the accused lay naked on a table under a stream of ice water for hours. It is interesting to note that this type of torture was considered light, and the court accepted confessions obtained in this way as voluntary and given by the defendant without the use of torture. Most often, these tortures were used by the Spanish Inquisition in order to extract confessions from heretics and witches.
Spanish armchair
This instrument of torture was widely used by the executioners of the Spanish Inquisition and was a chair made of iron, on which the prisoner was seated, and his legs were placed in stocks attached to the legs of the chair. When he found himself in such a completely helpless position, a brazier was placed under his feet; with hot coals, so that the legs began to slowly fry, and in order to prolong the suffering of the poor fellow, the legs were poured with oil from time to time.
Spanish armchair. (pinterest.com)
Another version of the Spanish chair was often used, which was a metal throne to which the victim was tied and a fire was lit under the seat, roasting the buttocks. The famous poisoner La Voisin was tortured on such a chair during the famous Poisoning Case in France.
Gridiron (grid for torture by fire)
This type of torture is often mentioned in the lives of saints - real and fictitious, but there is no evidence that the gridiron “survived” until the Middle Ages and had even a small circulation in Europe. It is usually described as an ordinary metal grate, 6 feet long and two and a half feet wide, mounted horizontally on legs to allow a fire to be built underneath.
Sometimes the gridiron was made in the form of a rack in order to be able to resort to combined torture.
Saint Lawrence was martyred on a similar grid.
This torture was used very rarely. Firstly, it was quite easy to kill the person being interrogated, and secondly, there were a lot of simpler, but no less cruel tortures.
Bloody Eagle
One of the most ancient tortures, during which the victim was tied face down and his back was opened, his ribs were broken off at the spine and spread apart like wings. Scandinavian legends claim that during such an execution, the wounds of the victim were sprinkled with salt.
Bloody eagle. (pinterest.com)
Many historians claim that this torture was used by pagans against Christians, others are sure that spouses caught in treason were punished in this way, and still others claim that the bloody eagle is just a terrible legend.
"Catherine's Wheel"
Before tying the victim to the wheel, his limbs were broken. During rotation, the legs and arms were completely broken off, bringing unbearable torment to the victim. Some died from painful shock, while others suffered for several days.
Catherine's Wheel. (pinterest.com)
Spanish donkey
A wooden log in the shape of a triangle was fixed on “legs”. The naked victim was placed on top of a sharp angle that cut straight into the crotch. To make the torture more unbearable, weights were tied to the legs.
Spanish donkey. (pinterest.com)
Spanish boot
This is a fastening on the leg with a metal plate, which, with each question and subsequent refusal to answer it, as required, was tightened more and more in order to break the bones of the person’s legs. To enhance the effect, sometimes an inquisitor was involved in the torture, who hit the fastening with a hammer. Often after such torture, all the bones of the victim below the knee were crushed, and the wounded skin looked like a bag for these bones.
Spanish boot. (pinterest.com)
Quartering by horses
The victim was tied to four horses - by the arms and legs. Then the animals were allowed to gallop. There were no options - only death.
Quartering. (pinterest.com)