The cruel torture of the horse of Judas. The ancient torture of the world includes the punishment of the guilty with the help of rats.

The term "inquisition" comes from lat. Inquisitio, meaning interrogation, inquiry. It was widespread in the legal field even before the emergence of medieval ecclesiastical institutions of that name, and meant the clarification of the circumstances of the case by investigation, usually by interrogation, often with the use of force. And only over time, the Inquisition began to be understood as spiritual judgments over anti-Christian heresies.

The torture of the Inquisition had hundreds of varieties. Some medieval instruments of torture have survived to this day, but more often than not even museum exhibits have been restored according to descriptions. Their variations are amazing. However, not only medieval Europe was famous for its cruelty.

Diletant. media collected methods and instruments of torture both in Europe and around the world.

Chinese bamboo torture

The infamous method of the gruesome Chinese execution throughout the world. Perhaps a legend, because not a single documentary evidence has survived to this day that this torture was actually used.

Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants on Earth. Some of its Chinese varieties can grow up to a 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.

How it works?

1) The sprouts of living bamboo are sharpened with a knife to make sharp "spears";

2) The victim is suspended horizontally, with his back or belly, over a bed of young pointed bamboo;

3) Bamboo grows rapidly into the heights, pierces the skin of the martyr and grows through his abdominal cavity, a person dies for a very long time and painfully.

Iron Maiden

Like the torture with bamboo, many researchers consider the "iron maiden" a terrible legend. Perhaps these metal sarcophagi with sharp thorns inside only frightened those under investigation, after which they confessed to anything.

The Iron Maiden was invented at the end of the 18th century, that is, at the end of the Catholic Inquisition.

How it works?

1) The victim is pushed into the sarcophagus and the door is closed;

2) The thorns driven into the inner walls of the "iron maiden" are rather short and do not pierce the victim through, but only cause pain. The investigator, as a rule, in a matter of minutes receives a confessionary statement, which the arrested person can only sign;

3) If the prisoner shows fortitude and remains silent, long nails, knives and rapiers are pushed through special holes in the sarcophagus. The pain becomes simply unbearable;

4) The victim never confesses to the deed, then she was locked in a sarcophagus for a long time, where she died from blood loss;

5) In some models of the "iron maiden" spikes were provided at eye level to gouge them out.

Scafism

The name of this torture comes from the Greek "scaphium", which means "trough". Skafism was popular in ancient Persia. The victim, most often a prisoner of war, during the torture was devoured alive by various insects that were not indifferent to human flesh and blood and their larvae.

Insects and their larvae devoured the victim of "Skafism" during torture

How it works?

1) The prisoner is placed in a shallow trough and wrapped in chains.

2) He is forcibly fed with large quantities of milk and honey, from which the victim begins to have profuse diarrhea, attracting insects.

3) The prisoner, who has gone bad, smeared with honey, is allowed to swim in the trough in the 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 has been used to punish women who have aborted, liars and homosexuals. The device was inserted into the vagina for women or the anus for men. When the executioner twisted the screw, the "petals" opened, tearing the flesh and bringing unbearable torment to the victims. Many then died from blood poisoning.

How it works?

1) An instrument consisting of pointed, pear-shaped leaf-shaped segments is pushed by the client into the desired hole in the body;

2) The executioner gradually turns the screw on the top of the pear, while the "leaves" -segments bloom inside the martyr, causing hellish pain;

3) After the pear is opened completely, the guilty one receives internal injuries incompatible with life and dies in terrible agony, if he has not already fallen into unconsciousness before.

Copper bull

The design of this death machine was developed by the ancient Greeks, or more precisely, the coppersmith Perillus, who sold his terrible bull to the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris, who simply adored torturing and killing people in unusual ways.

A living person was pushed inside the copper statue through a special door.

How it works?

1) The sacrifice is enclosed in a hollow copper statue of a bull;

2) A fire is made under the belly of the bull;

3) The victim is roasted alive;

4) The structure of the bull is such that the cries of the martyr are heard from the jaws of the statue, like a bull's roar;

5) Ornaments and charms were made from the bones of the executed, which were sold in bazaars and were in great demand.

Rat torture

Rat torture was very popular in ancient China. However, we will take a look at the rat punishment technique developed by the leader of the 17th century Netherlands Revolution, Didrik Sonoi.

Trying to escape the heat of the coals, rats gnaw their way through the body

How it works?

1) The martyr, stripped naked, is laid on the table and tied;

2) Large, heavy cages with hungry rats are placed on the prisoner's stomach and chest. The bottom of the cages is opened with a special latch;

3) Hot coals are placed on top of the cages to stir up the rats;

4) Trying to escape from the heat of hot coals, rats gnaw their way through the flesh of the victim.

Cradle of Judas

The Cradle of Judas was one of the most excruciating torture machines in the arsenal of the Suprema, the Spanish Inquisition. Victims usually died of infection, due to the fact that the peaked seat of the torture machine was never disinfected. The cradle of Judas, as an instrument of torture, was considered "loyal", for it did not break bones and did not tear ligaments.

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 pierced into the anus or vagina;

3) With the help of ropes, the victim is gradually lowered lower and lower;

4) The torture continues for several hours or even days until the victim dies of powerlessness and pain, or of blood loss as a result of soft tissue rupture.

Rack

Probably the most famous and unsurpassed death machine called "rack". It was first experienced around AD 300. NS. on the Christian martyr Vincent of Zaragoza.

Anyone who survived the rearing could no longer use their muscles and turned into a helpless vegetable.

The rearing survivor turned into a helpless vegetable

How it works?

1. This instrument of torture is a special bed with rollers at both ends, on which ropes were wound to hold the victim's wrists and ankles. As the rollers rotated, the ropes were pulled in opposite directions, stretching the body;

2. Ligaments on the victim's arms and legs stretch and break, bones pop out of the joints.

3. Another version of the rack was also used, called the strappado: it consisted of 2 pillars dug into the ground and connected by a crossbar. The person being interrogated was tied behind his back and lifted by a rope tied to his hands. Sometimes a log or other weights were attached to his tied legs. At the same time, the hands of the person raised on the rack were twisted back and often came out of the joints, so that the convict had to hang on the twisted hands. 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 who was raised on a rack was beaten on the back with a whip, and “put on the fire,” that is, they drove over the body with burning brooms.

5. In some cases, the executioner broke the ribs of a man hanging on a rack with hot pincers.

Shiri (camel cap)

A monstrous fate awaited those whom the Juanzhuans (a union of nomadic Turkic-speaking peoples) took into slavery. They destroyed the memory of the slave with terrible torture - putting a width on the victim's head. Usually this fate befell young men captured in battles.

How it works?

1. First, the slaves' heads were shaved bald, each hair carefully scraped out at the root.

2. Executors slaughtered the camel and refreshed its carcass, first of all, separating its heaviest, densenest part.

3. Dividing it into pieces, it was immediately pulled in paired form over the shaved heads of the prisoners. These pieces covered the heads of the slaves like a plaster. This meant putting on a shir.

4. After putting on the width, the neck of the doomed was shackled into 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 could hear their heartbreaking cries, and 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 survived, and the rest died not from hunger or even from thirst, but from the unbearable, inhuman torment caused by the drying rawhide camel skin shrinking on the head. Compressing inexorably under the rays of the scorching sun, it squeezed wide, squeezed the shaved head of a slave 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 rawhide, in most cases, finding no way out, the hair was curled and again left the ends in the scalp, causing even greater suffering. Within a day, the person lost his mind. Only on the fifth day did the Zhuangjuans come to check whether any of the prisoners had survived. If at least one of the tortured was found alive, it was believed that the goal had been achieved.

7. Anyone who underwent such a procedure, or died, could not bear the torture, or lost his memory for the rest of his life, turned into a mankurt - a slave who does not remember his past.

8. The skin of one camel was enough for five to six widths.

The cradle of Judas, as an instrument of torture, was considered "loyal"

Spanish water torture

In order to best carry out the procedure for this torture, the accused was placed on one of the types of rack 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 proceeded to work in one of several ways. One of these methods was to force the victim to swallow a large amount of water using a funnel, then beat the inflated and arched abdomen.

Another form involved placing a rag tube in the victim's throat, through which water was slowly poured, which caused the victim to swell and suffocate. If that was not enough, the tube was pulled out, causing internal damage, and then reinserted and the process repeated. Sometimes they used cold water torture. In this case, the accused lay naked on the table for hours under a stream of ice cold water. It is interesting to note that this kind of torture was considered easy, and the confessions obtained in this way were accepted by the court as voluntary and given to the defendants without torture. Most often, this torture was used by the Spanish Inquisition in order to beat 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 enclosed in blocks 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 roast, and in order to prolong the poor man's suffering, the legs were poured with oil from time to time.

Poisoner La Voisin was tortured on a Spanish chair

Another version of the Spanish chair was often used, which was a metal throne, to which the victim was tied and a fire was made under the seat, frying the buttocks. The famous poisoner La Voisin was tortured on such a chair during the famous Poisoning Case in France.

GRIDIRON (Grill for torture by fire)

This type of torture is often mentioned in the lives of saints - real and invented, but there is no evidence that 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 wide, set horizontally on legs so that a fire can be made underneath.

Sometimes 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 lattice.

This torture was rarely used. Firstly, it was easy enough 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 the back was opened, the ribs were broken off at the spine and spread apart like wings. In Scandinavian legends, it is stated that during such an execution, the victims were sprinkled with salt.

Many historians claim that this torture was used by pagans in relation to Christians, others are sure that spouses convicted of treason were punished in this way, and still others argue that the bloody eagle is just a terrible legend.

"Catherine's wheel"

Before tying the victim to the wheel, her limbs were broken. When rotating, the legs and arms were finally broken, bringing unbearable torment to the victim. Some died from painful shock, while others suffered for several days.

Spanish donkey

A wooden log in the form of a triangle was fixed on the "legs". The naked victim was placed on top at a sharp angle that cut right into the crotch. To make the torture more unbearable, weights were tied to the legs.

Spanish boot

This is such an attachment on the leg with a metal plate, which with each question and the subsequent refusal to answer it as required, tightened more and more in order to break the bones of the legs. To enhance the effect, sometimes the inquisitor was connected to the torture, who hit the mount with a hammer. Often, after such torture, all the bones of the victim below the knee were shattered, and the wounded skin looked like a bag for these bones.

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.

Technical description

Artistic description

Sexual torture

The desire to curb human lust and assert power over the most intimate were the reason for the creation of a number of the most sophisticated and intricate devices of torture. This is how anti-masturbation rings and a chastity belt appeared.

The oldest specimen of a female chastity belt was found in Austria by the famous archaeologist Anton Pachinger and dates back to the 16th century. These devices were widely popular among the knights who went on a campaign and were too concerned about the loyalty of their spouses. They fettered their wives and took the key with them. I must say that such iron shackles, although they made it possible to relieve themselves, made it almost impossible to maintain hygiene. Over time, the models of belts were improved and jewelers began to create locks. The keys were made in a single copy, and it was no longer possible to open them with master keys. In addition, the lock was arranged in such a cunning way that it “pinched off” a piece of the object with which they tried to open it and, returning from distant countries, the husband could see how many times his faithful tried to free herself from the captivity of loyalty.

A century later, in Victorian England, the men's chastity belt and rings were invented, originally intended for young boys who indulge in masturbation. In those days, it was generally accepted that masturbation leads to blindness, insanity, sudden death and other dire consequences. However, the deprivation of a man, especially a young man, of sex or masturbation is the real torture of his precious genitals, his nature. The structures were made of metal and were often equipped with spikes or simply squeezed the penis tightly, causing pain on arousal and making an erection impossible.

But among the "intimate" types of torture, there were also more terrible ones. For example, pears and wooden phalluses. Their use was often accompanied by the interrogation or punishment of heretics and witches. Both guns were aimed at tearing the most sensitive organs. The use of a pear was considered a harsher punishment, since it was usually heated before insertion and inserted into the mouth, anus, or vagina. When the screw was tightened, the segments of the pear opened to their maximum value. The victim was writhing in convulsions and from the prolonged interrogation could completely die from large blood loss and painful shock.

Interesting fact:

The predecessors of chastity belts are considered to be leather belts, which in ancient Rome were used to bandage slaves to prevent their pregnancy. Later, the purpose and appearance were transformed and already in medieval Europe an iron structure was invented, designed to preserve chastity.

Artistic description

One of the main factors driving a person is the reproductive instinct and the accompanying pleasures. People who were the first to realize this simple truth began to use it to manipulate other people. To do this, they have developed many sophisticated devices.

The husband of a young beautiful girl, leaving for distant lands, protected himself from betrayal. He asked the blacksmith to make original underwear for her from durable iron. For several months she cannot walk and sit normally, the "chastity belt" rubs her thighs and perineum, and restricts not only the sexual instinct, but also the access of water to the unwashed body.

Young men from a religious family often suffer from pain at night, from the pressure on the genitals of a protective cap made of metal rings or plates.

The second type of adaptation serves to imitate actions of a sexual nature, and their aggravation to truly monstrous forms.

A woman suspected of witchcraft is tied tightly, completely undressed, and stretched on a torture table in an obscene position. Executors take wooden items of an oblong, and not always anatomical shape, and imitate sexual penetration. They do it so rudely that the unfortunate woman experiences terrible pain and burning. Gradually, the torturers bring her to bleeding, and confessions of all the sins of this world.

A separate example of cruelty and inhumanity is a mechanical "pear". It is injected into the natural cavities of both men and women, which in itself causes terrible torment. Then the executioner turns the screw, and the "petals" open, tearing the soft tissues inside the person. After such torture, mercy will be the quick killing of the victim, since she will no longer be able to walk or adequately perceive reality.

The mood now is The executed prisoner ...

Guillotine

The guillotine is a mechanism for the execution of the death penalty by beheading. Guillotine execution is often referred to as guillotine execution.

The main part of the guillotine is a heavy (40-100 kg) oblique knife (slang name - "lamb"), freely moving along vertical guides. The knife was raised to a height of 2-3 meters and held with a rope. The head of the guillotined person was placed in a special recess at the base of the mechanism and fixed on top with a wooden bar with a recess, after which the rope holding the knife was released, and it fell at high speed on the victim's neck.

Quartering

Quartering is a historical form of the death penalty, involving amputation of limbs. As the name implies, the body of the convict is divided into four parts (or more). After the execution, parts of the body are put on public display separately (sometimes they are carried to four outposts, city gates, etc.). Quartering fell out of use in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Wheeling

Wheeling is a common form of the death penalty in antiquity and the Middle Ages. Wheeling was used in ancient Rome. In the Middle Ages, it was common in Europe, especially in Germany and France. In Russia, this type of execution has been known since the 17th century, but the wheel began to be regularly used only under Peter I, having received legislative approval in the Military Regulations. The wheel ceased to be used only in the 19th century.

A person sentenced to the wheel with an iron crowbar or a wheel broke all the large bones of the body, then they tied him to a large wheel, and set the wheel on a pole. The convict found himself face up, looking at the sky, and died like that from shock and dehydration, often for quite a long time. The suffering of the dying person was aggravated by the birds that pecked at him. Sometimes, instead of a wheel, they just used a wooden frame or a cross made of logs.

Boiling water

Welding in liquid was a common form of the death penalty around the world, and in France it was used against counterfeiters. In ancient Egypt, this type of punishment was applied mainly to persons who disobeyed the pharaoh. Pharaoh's slaves at dawn (especially so that Ra saw the criminal) made a huge fire, over which there was a cauldron of water (and not just with water, but with the dirtiest water, where waste was poured, etc.). families.

Crucifixion

The hands and feet of the condemned to death were nailed to the ends of the cross, or the limbs were fixed with ropes. At the same time, the nails were driven not into the palms, but into the wrists, since the nails driven into the palms did not hold the body on the cross, under the weight of the person being executed, the nails cut through the tissues of the limbs and the person being executed could fall from the cross.

A wooden cross was used, as a rule, oblique, sometimes straight, but other forms of it also existed. Sometimes a small ledge was attached in the center of the cross, on which the crucified could lean. Then the cross was fixed vertically for everyone to see. Often the crucifixion itself was preceded by a shameful procession, during which the condemned had to carry the so-called patibulum, a wooden bar, which later served as a horizontal crossbar of the cross.
Execution was known in Babylonia and Greece, but it was especially widespread in ancient Rome, where it became the main type of painful death penalty. So they executed especially dangerous criminals (rioters, traitors, murderers, etc.). In the event of the murder of the owner of the house, all slaves living in the house, regardless of gender and age, were subject to crucifixion. Participants of the Spartacus uprising were also crucified. According to Christian doctrine, Jesus Christ was crucified, which made the cross a symbol of the Christian religion. A number of Christian saints (the apostles Andrew and Peter, the martyr Cleonikos of Amasia) were also executed by crucifixion.
The main cause of death during crucifixion is asphyxia caused by developing pulmonary edema and fatigue of the intercostal and abdominal muscles involved in the breathing process. The main support of the body in this position is the arms, and when breathing, the abdominal muscles and intercostal muscles had to lift the weight of the whole body, which led to their rapid fatigue. Also, compression of the chest with tense muscles of the shoulder girdle and chest caused fluid congestion in the lungs and pulmonary edema. Additional causes of death were dehydration and blood loss.
The ability to lean on the ledge attached to the cross made breathing somewhat easier, but in general only delayed the death process. To speed up the execution, the convicts were interrupted with a sword, club or ax of their shins, which deprived them of additional support.
The crucified person died long and painfully, usually within 6-72 hours. In some cases, in order to prolong the torment, water or vinegar was brought to the crucified person in a sponge.
Crucifixion as a form of the death penalty still exists in Sudanese law. But before the crucifixion itself, the preliminary hanging of the condemned is performed, that is, the already dead body is crucified.

Burning

Burning is a type of death penalty in which a condemned person was publicly burned alive on a pre-prepared fire.

Along with immuring and imprisonment, burning was widely used in the Middle Ages, since, according to the church, on the one hand, it happened without "shedding blood", and on the other hand, the flame was considered a means of "cleansing" and could save the soul. Heretics, "witches" and those guilty of sodomy were especially often subject to burning.
Juan Antonio Llorente in his book "History of the Spanish Inquisition" writes that in Spain in 1540-1700, the Holy Inquisition burned 31,700 people, excluding its colonies.

Burial alive

Burial alive is known as a method of capital punishment or torture, as well as as a result of an accident (for example, when a rubble collapses in a mine, etc.); in addition, burial alive occurs by mistake (over a person who is mistakenly believed to be dead).

It is known as a method of the death penalty in ancient Rome; a vestal who broke her vow of virginity was buried alive, and food and water were placed in her grave for one day. Many Christian martyrs were executed by burial alive. In medieval Italy, unrepentant murderers were buried alive. In Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries, women who had killed their husbands were buried alive up to their necks.

Accidental burial of a person who was unconscious or in lethargic sleep was quite rare, and with modern medicine in developed countries it is completely excluded, but this story was extremely common in the culture of the 18th-20th centuries. He meets with Edgar Poe all the time. In particular, this topic is specially treated in his story "Premature Burial", where a hero is tragicomically depicted who was afraid to be buried alive and made a special crypt for himself with a bell, and then woke up buried in the ground; later it turns out that he was not buried, but fell asleep in the hold of a ship carrying earth. Coffins with means of salvation for those buried alive were actually produced and patented since the second half of the 19th century. until now. Marina Tsvetaeva was afraid of being buried alive and stipulated this in her suicide note before her suicide. There is a legend that N.V. Gogol died in this way.

Lynchy

Lynchi (Chinese. "Death from a thousand cuts") is a particularly painful method of capital punishment by cutting off small fragments from the victim's body for a long period of time.

It was used in China for treason and paricide in the Middle Ages and during the Qing dynasty until its abolition in 1905. In 1630, the prominent Ming commander Yuan Chonghuan was subjected to this execution. Poet Lu Yu made a proposal to cancel it back in the 12th century.

During the Qing dynasty, lingchi was performed in public places with a large crowd of onlookers for the purpose of intimidation. The surviving descriptions of the execution differ in detail. The victim, as a rule, was pumped with opium - either out of mercy, or to prevent her losing consciousness.

Analysis of the photographs indicates that the ceremony took no more than 20 minutes, and Western evidence of its particularly long duration is somewhat exaggerated. The bribe to the executioner made it possible to shorten the duration of the procedure.

Garrotte

Garrote is a Spanish method of execution by suffocation. Initially, the garrote was a noose with a stick, with which the executioner killed the victim. Over time, it transformed into a metal hoop driven by a screw with a lever at the back. Before execution, the condemned was tied to a chair or a pillar; a bag was put on his head. After the execution of the sentence, the bag was removed so that the audience could see the victim's face.

Later, the garrote was improved. So, the Catalan garrote appeared, where the screw was equipped with a point, which, when turned, gradually screwed into the convict's neck and crushed his cervical vertebrae. Contrary to popular belief, such a device was "more humane", since the victim died faster.

Impaling

Impalement was widely used in Ancient Egypt and the Middle East, the first mentions of it date back to the beginning of the second millennium BC. NS. Execution received special orders in Assyria, where impalement was a common punishment for residents of rebellious cities, therefore, for educational purposes, the scenes of this execution were often depicted on bas-reliefs. This execution was used according to Assyrian law and as a punishment for women for abortion (considered as a variant of infanticide), as well as for a number of especially serious crimes. On Assyrian reliefs, there are two options: with one of them, the condemned was pierced with a stake with a stake, with the other, the tip of the stake entered the body from below, through the anus. Execution was widely used in the Mediterranean and the Middle East at least from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. NS. It was also known to the Romans, although it did not receive much distribution in ancient Rome. Middle Ages

Throughout much of medieval history, impalement was very common in the Middle East, where it was one of the main forms of painful execution.

Impalement was quite common in Byzantium, for example Belisarius suppressed soldiers' revolts by impaling the instigators.

The Romanian ruler Vlad III (Tepes - "Impaler") distinguished himself with particular cruelty. At his direction, the victims were impaled on a thick stake, the top of which was rounded and oiled. The stake was inserted into the anus or vagina (in the latter case, the victim died practically within a few minutes from profuse blood loss) to a depth of several tens of centimeters, then the stake was installed vertically. The victim, under the influence of the weight of his body, slowly slid down the stake, and sometimes death occurred only after a few days, since the rounded stake did not pierce the vital organs, but only entered deeper and deeper into the body. In some cases, a horizontal bar was installed on the stake, which prevented the body from sliding too low, and ensured that the stake did not reach the heart and other important organs. In this case, death from blood loss did not occur very soon. The usual execution was also very painful, and the victims writhed on a stake for several hours.

Iron Maiden

The Iron Maiden is an instrument of capital punishment or torture of the Middle Ages, which was a wardrobe made of iron in the shape of a woman dressed in a 16th century city woman's costume. It is assumed that after placing the convict there, the cabinet was closed, and the sharp long nails with which the inner surface of the chest and arms of the "iron maiden" was seated, pierced his body; then, after the death of the victim, the movable bottom of the cabinet sank, the body of the executed was thrown into the water and carried away by its current.

At the same time, apparently, the nails inside the "iron maiden" were located in such a way that the victim did not die immediately, but after a rather long time, during which her judges had the opportunity to continue interrogation.

According to the stories of ancient writers, this method of execution was first invented by the Spartan tyrant Nabis. The apparatus he invented had the appearance of a woman sitting on a chair, and was called Apega, after the tyrant's wife; with the approach of the convict, Apega stood up and threw both her hands on his back, covered, like his chest, with sharp nails, which tore the body apart.

There is no reliable information about the use of the iron maiden for torture and execution. The most famous example was built in Nuremberg at the beginning of the 16th century. It has not survived to this day: in 1944, the fortress, in the basement of which this so-called "Maiden of Nuremberg" was located, was destroyed as a result of an air raid. Taking into account the strict formalization of medieval inquisitional processes and the regulation of permissible torture, it is safe to say that if the "iron maiden" was used, it was only by secular courts. However, it is believed that it was fabricated during the Enlightenment.

A similar "maiden" was discovered in 2003 in Iraq. It is stated that it was used to crack down on opponents of Saddam Hussein.

Keeling

Keeling - in the era of sailing ships, the punishment was to drag a person with the help of keel ends from side to side under the bottom of the ship. Often the pitching resulted in the death of the person being punished.

The convict was lifted onto a yard, lowered upside down into the water and pulled with a rope under the keel to the other side of the ship. Keeling was done once, twice or three times, depending on the offense. If the criminal did not choke, then there was a great danger that he would be so cut with benthos growing on the sides of the ship that he would soon die of bleeding.

Poena cullei

Poena cullei (from Latin “execution in a sack”) is a qualified form of the death penalty known to Roman criminal law. It consisted of sewing the person to be executed in a leather sack together with a live snake, monkey, rooster and dog, followed by drowning the sack in a pond.
It was used for the murder of relatives, primarily the father.
It was of a sacred and symbolic nature, since a criminal who was exposed to poena cullei was likened to the corresponding animal.
According to the testimony of Cicero, the blasphemers were also subjected to the same punishment ("Whoever steals or steals an object sacred or entrusted to the sacred guard, let it be a 'parricide'").
With the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire, this execution did not disappear. So, it was confirmed by the laws of Constantine the Great, although the latter extended this execution to infanticides.

Hanging

Hanging is a type of mechanical asphyxia that occurs when the neck is squeezed with a noose tightened under the weight of the deceased's body. Usually the loop is a ring, a knot, the free end of which is fixed immovably. Hanging is used as a method of death, murder, or suicide.

In most cases, the death of a hanged man does not come from strangulation, as many think, but from squeezing the carotid arteries that supply blood to the brain. When deprived of support, the hanged man loses consciousness after a few seconds (but if he does not lose consciousness, then the painful agony can last longer), and after a few minutes biological death can be recorded due to irreversible damage to the cerebral cortex. Cardiac activity continues for some time after respiratory arrest. Since the second half of the 19th century, in many countries, a type of hanging has been used with the death penalty, in which the body of a convict not only loses its support and hangs on a rope, but falls from a great height (several meters) through a hatch. In this case, death occurs not from asphyxia after a few minutes, but from rupture of the cervical vertebrae and spinal cord almost instantly. With such a hanging, it is necessary to calculate the length of the rope depending on the weight of the convict so that the head does not separate from the body.

Stoned

They were sentenced to stoning only for those 18 types of crimes for which the Bible directly prescribes such an execution. However, in the Talmud, the throwing of stones was replaced by the throwing of the condemned to the stones. According to the Talmud, the condemned should be thrown from such a height that death occurs instantly, but his body was not disfigured.

The stoning took place like this: a person sentenced by the court was given an extract of narcotic herbs as a pain reliever, after which he was thrown off a cliff, and if he did not die from this, one large stone was thrown on top of him.

How do you think the torture was the worst during the Middle Ages? Lack of toothpaste, good soap or shampoo? That medieval discos were held to the tedious music of mandolins? Or maybe the fact that medicine did not yet know vaccinations and antibiotics? Or endless wars?

Yes, our ancestors did not go to movie theaters or send each other emails. But they were also inventors. And the worst thing that they invented is the instruments for torture, the instruments with which the system of Christian justice was created - the Inquisition. And for those who lived in the Middle Ages, Iron Maidn is not the name of a heavy metal band, but one of the most disgusting gadgets of the time.

These are not "three girls under the window." It is a huge sarcophagus in the form of an open empty female figure, inside which numerous blades and sharp thorns are fixed. They are located in such a way that the vital organs of the victim imprisoned in the sarcophagus were not affected, so the agony of the sentenced to death was long and painful. For the first time, the "Virgin" was used in 1515. The condemned man died for three days.

This device was inserted into the holes of the body - obviously, not into the mouth or ears - and opened so as to inflict unthinkable pain on the victim by tearing open these holes.

This torture was developed in Greece, Athens. It was a bull shape made of metal (brass) and hollow inside, with a door on the side. The convict was placed inside the "bull". The fire was lit and heated to such an extent that the brass turned yellow, which eventually resulted in a slow roasting. The bull was so arranged that when screaming and screaming from within, the roar of a mad bull was heard.

Rat torture was very popular in ancient China. However, we will take a look at the rat punishment technique developed by the leader of the 16th century Netherlands Revolution, Didrik Sonoi.

How it works?

The martyr, stripped naked, is laid on the table and tied;
Large, heavy cages with hungry rats are placed on the prisoner's stomach and chest. The bottom of the cages is opened with a special latch;
Hot coals are placed on top of the cages to stir up the rats;
Trying to escape from the heat of hot coals, rats gnaw their way through the flesh of the victim.

The know-how belongs to Hippolyte Marsili. At one time, this instrument of torture was considered loyal - it did not break bones, did not tear ligaments. First, the sinner was lifted up on a rope, and then he sat on the Cradle, and the top of the triangle was inserted into the same holes as the Pear. It hurt to such an extent that the sinner fainted. He was lifted, "pumped out" and put back on the Cradle. I don’t think that in moments of enlightenment, sinners thanked Hippolytus for his invention.

For several centuries this execution was practiced in India and Indochina. The elephant is very easy to train and teach him to trample a guilty victim with his huge feet for several days

How it works?

The victim is tied to the floor;
A trained elephant is brought into the hall to crush the head of the martyr;
Sometimes, before the "control in the head", the animals press the arms and legs of the victims in order to amuse the audience.

This device is an oblong rectangle with a wooden frame. Hands were firmly fixed at the bottom and at the top. As the interrogation / torture progressed, the executioner twisted the lever, with each turn the person stretched and hellish pain set in. Usually, upon completion of the torture, the person either simply died of pain shock, because that's all. his joints were pulled out.

Torture "dead man's bed" is used by the Chinese Communist Party mainly on those prisoners who are trying to protest against illegal imprisonment through a hunger strike. In most cases, these are prisoners of conscience who have been imprisoned for their beliefs.

How it works?

The arms and legs of a stripped prisoner are tied to the corners of a bed, on which, instead of a mattress, there is a wooden board with a cut-out hole. A bucket for feces is placed under the hole. Often, ropes are tied tightly to the bed and the human body so that he cannot move at all. In this position, a person is continuously from several days to weeks.
In some prisons, such as Shenyang City No. 2 Prison and Jilin City Prison, the police place a hard object under the victim's back to increase the suffering.
It also happens that the bed is placed vertically and for 3-4 days the person hangs, stretched out by the limbs.
To these torments is added force-feeding, which is carried out with the help of a tube inserted through the nose into the esophagus, into which liquid food is poured.
This procedure is carried out mainly by prisoners on the orders of the guards, and not by medical workers. They do it very rudely and unprofessionally, often causing more serious damage to the internal organs of a person.
Those who have gone through this torture say that it displaces the vertebrae, joints of the arms and legs, as well as numbness and blackening of the limbs, which often leads to disability.

One of the medieval tortures used in modern Chinese prisons is wearing a wooden yoke. It is put on a prisoner, which is why he can neither walk nor stand normally.

The clamp is a board from 50 to 80 cm in length, from 30 to 50 cm in width and 10 to 15 cm in thickness. In the middle of the clamp there are two holes for the legs.

The victim who is wearing the strap has difficulty moving, must crawl into bed, and usually must sit or lie down, as standing upright causes pain and injuries to the legs. Without assistance, a person with a clamp cannot go to eat or go to the toilet. When a person gets out of bed, the collar not only presses on the legs and heels, causing pain, but its edge clings to the bed and prevents the person from returning to it. At night, the prisoner is unable to turn, and in winter, a short blanket does not cover his legs.

An even worse form of this torture is called "crawling with a wooden clamp." The guards put a collar on the person and order him to crawl on the concrete floor. If he stops, they hit him on the back with a police baton. After an hour, fingers, toenails and knees bleed profusely, while the back is covered with impact wounds.

A terrible wild execution that came from the East.

The essence of this execution was that a person was placed on his stomach, one sat on him to prevent him from moving, the other held him by the neck. A stake was inserted into a person's anus, which was then driven in with a mallet; then they drove the stake into the ground. The severity of the body made the stake go deeper and deeper and finally it came out under the arm or between the ribs.

The person was seated in a very cold room, they tied him so that he could not move his head, and in complete darkness cold water was very slowly dripped onto his forehead. After a few days, the person froze or went crazy.

The torture of St. Lawrence on the Gridiron.

Saint Lawrence was martyred on a similar lattice.

This torture was rarely used. Firstly, it was easy enough to kill the person being interrogated, and secondly, there were a lot of simpler, but no less cruel tortures.

Pectoral in ancient times was called a female breast adornment in the form of a paired carved gold or silver bowl, often showered with precious stones. It was worn like a modern bra and was attached with chains. By a mocking analogy with this decoration, the savage instrument of torture used by the Venetian Inquisition was named.

In 1985, the pectoral was red-hot and, taking it with forceps, they put it on the tortured chest and held it until it confessed. If the accused persisted, the executioners heated up the pectoral, again cooled by a living body, and continued the interrogation.

Very often, after this barbaric torture, charred ragged holes remained in the place of the woman's breasts.

This seemingly harmless impact was a terrible torture. With prolonged tickling, a person's nerve conduction increased so much that even the lightest touch at first caused twitching, laughter, and then turned into terrible pain. If this torture was continued for a long time, then after a while spasms of the respiratory muscles arose and, in the end, the tortured person died from suffocation.

In the simplest version of torture, the interrogated was tickled sensitive areas either simply with his hands, or with hair brushes and brushes. Hard feathers were popular. Usually tickled under the armpits, heels, nipples, groin folds, genitals, women also under the breasts.

In addition, torture was often used with the use of animals that licked any tasty substance from the heels of the interrogated. The goat was very often used, because its very hard tongue, adapted for eating grasses, caused very strong irritation.

There was also a form of tickling torture with a beetle, most common in India. With her, a small bug was planted on the head of a man's penis or on a woman's nipple and covered with half a nut shell. After a while, the tickling caused by the movement of the insect's legs over the living body became so intolerable that the interrogated confessed to anything ...

These tubular metal crocodile pliers were red-hot and used to tear off the tortured person's penis. At first, with a few caressing movements (often performed by women), or with a tight bandage, a persistent hard erection was achieved and then the torture began

The testicles of the person being interrogated were slowly crushed with these toothed iron forceps. Something similar was widely used in Stalin's and fascist prisons.

Actually, this is not torture, but an African rite, but, in my opinion, it is very cruel. Girls from 3-6 years old without anesthesia were simply scraped out the external genitals. Thus, the girl did not lose the ability to have children, but was forever deprived of the opportunity to experience sexual desire and pleasure. This ceremony is done “for the good” of women, so that they never have the temptation to cheat on their husbands ...

Part of the image engraved on the Stora Hammers stone. The illustration depicts a man lying on his stomach, with an executor standing over him, ripping the man's back with an unusual weapon.

If that was not enough, the tube was pulled out, causing internal damage, and then reinserted and the process repeated. Sometimes they used cold water torture. In this case, the accused lay naked on the table for hours under a stream of ice cold water. It is interesting to note that this kind of torture was considered easy, and the confessions obtained in this way were accepted by the court as voluntary and given to the defendants without torture. Most often, this torture was used by the Spanish Inquisition in order to beat confessions from heretics and witches.

The Middle Ages brought us not only legends about brave knights and beautiful maidens. In those days, human life was worth nothing, so the executioners did not particularly stand on ceremony in the methods of knocking out confessions. The torturer was a very popular specialist in the labor market of those times.

We do not know anything about the modern methods of cruel torture of prisoners, but the chronicles have preserved for us many interesting facts about the routine work of the Holy Inquisition and ordinary executioners around the world. Then thousands of ways were invented to make a person suffer for many days and even weeks, without letting him die. Now, entire museums are devoted to this "art", where there are exhibits of instruments and bizarre machines for cruel torture in those days.

1. Torture with bamboo

The Chinese definitely knew a lot about the brutal torture. The methods of their executioners are legendary for many centuries. China is also home to bamboo, the fastest growing plant on our planet. The growth rate of some types of bamboo can reach up to 1 meter per day, which the cunning Chinese did not fail to take advantage of, who wanted to extract confessions from their victims, or simply punish someone for misconduct.

The victim was tied to the ground in a horizontal position so that she could not move. There were bamboo shoots in the soil under the prisoner's body, which continued to grow relentlessly upward. In just a few hours, the stems of the plant rose so much that they began to dig into human flesh, causing unthinkable suffering. The growing pain forced to tell about anything, if only the executioners would stop the suffering of the poor fellow.

In one of the varieties of such cruel torture, the condemned was not tied to the ground, but laid on a table, under which there were already thick stems of a plant. They were sharpened to razor sharpness and waited for nature to do its job.

Modern researchers doubted that such torture could be effective, but "Mythbusters" tested this method of torture in their transmission, fully confirming it.

2. Scafism or insect torture

The ancient Persians also knew a lot about entertainment. They invented a particularly brutal torture called scaphism. To "split" a person or simply execute him, it took only a small boat or trough and a little ingenuity.

The prisoner was stripped and tied to the bottom of the trough. To achieve the desired effect, the person was fed a mixture of milk and honey, which caused severe uncontrolled diarrhea. The body of the victim was also coated with honey. Further, it was only required to release the boat with the prisoner into free swimming in some musty pond or swamp under the scorching sun, where a lot of all kinds of living creatures live. The mixture of smells of fecal masses and honey attracted insects, which mercilessly gnawed the body of the victim and laid their larvae in it.

This cruel torture could last for several days. The executioners did not allow the victim to die, feeding her. According to some testimonies, one of the captives, who was subjected to scaphism, died only 17 days later.

3. Rodent torture

From hot and exotic Persia, we are again transported to China. Yes, the Chinese executioners knew a lot about their business. It was they who invented another of the most brutal torture in human history - rat torture.

The victim was exposed to the stomach and a structure in the form of a cage without a bottom was placed on it, on top of which was a brazier for charcoal. They put rats in the cage and began to put coals in the brazier. The rodents worried about the fever had to look for a way out of this situation, and the only way to escape was the victim's belly, which the rats began to gnaw. It is difficult to imagine what kind of torment a person experienced when he felt huge rats crawling in his stomach.

4. Iron maiden

The Holy Inquisition is indispensable on our list. The number of people who gave their lives at the behest of the Inquisitors is unknown, but the count goes to tens of thousands.

One of the most famous instruments of cruel torture is the Iron Maiden. At the moment, historians are debating whether such a mechanism really existed in the Middle Ages, or whether it was fabricated much later, during the Enlightenment, by some dreamer. However, this does not negate the fact that the Iron Maiden was used for torture.

The iron maiden was a wardrobe, the walls of which were studded with thorns of various lengths. The prisoner was placed in the closet and the doors were closed, and the sharp thorns only slightly pierced his flesh. The victim had to stand motionless so as not to inflict additional suffering on himself. At this time, the executioner could conduct an interrogation. In the end, the prisoner got tired, his limbs were numb, and one convulsive movement of his hand could turn into a collision with thorns, the pain from which made the prisoner twitch harder and harder. In fact, man was killing himself.

5. Bull Falarida

The history of this brutal torture and execution goes back to before our era, when the tyrant Falaris ordered his coppersmith to make a full-length statue of a bull from copper, which would be hollow inside.

On the back of the bull, doors opened through which the prisoner was pushed inside. A fire was made under the statue, which slowly but surely heated the entire structure, causing incredible suffering to the victim. A special grace was given by the fact that the nostrils of the bull were hollow and connected to the inner chamber, due to which the smoke that came from the prisoner came out through the nostrils, creating an impressive effect for the audience of those times. In addition, the dying victim was screaming very actively inside, and the output was a sound similar to the roar of a bull.