“Did you know that the Iron Lady probably didn’t exist? At least not the way we often think of her. We’ve all seen that tall sarcophagus with long spikes and thought about how horrifying it must have been for people in the Middle Ages when it closed. Surprisingly, there’s no proof that the iron maiden was used a lot in the Middle Ages.”
“Johan Philip Seban Keys, a German philosopher who wrote in the 1700s, was the first and most famous person to write about its effects. Since then, it has stayed in torture museums and ancient displays all over the world. The Iron Maiden’s fame, even though it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with real events, shows how interested we are in old-fashioned ways of torturing people.”
“The Iron Maiden’s main goal, ever since it was first shown, has been to make people think of dark, forgotten times. It makes you think about the horrible things people used to do to each other, which gently makes you think that today’s world is a lot nicer. When we think about how mean people were in the past, we like to shake our heads and say that we are much better than them.”
“Torment and revenge, on the other hand, are still very popular ideas, and putting them in the past only makes them seem more academic. From imagining punishments to putting people to death, humans have come up with some really cruel ways to treat people over the years. Breaking on the wheel.”
“Some ways of torturing people are remembered because they are so complicated while others are remembered because they are so easy. The breaking wheel is a simple idea that has been changed in different cultures. However, it is famous because it is public, violent, and linked to famous stories.”
“People were tied to a big wooden wheel by their limbs. Then someone would hit them over and over with a big club or iron rod, breaking all of their limbs. After a lot of abuse, the person who was putting people to death would often hit them in the face or chest to kill them. As a way to kill, the breaking wheel was usually only used on killers and traitors. The story of St. Catherine of Alexandria is the most well-known connection between the broken wheel and stories. As a victim, St. Catherine got ready to die for her faith. Her first sentence was to be broken on the wheel. But sources say that when she touched it, the wooden structure broke apart. Instead, she was beheaded, which keeps her off the list of the worst ways saints have died.”
“Many bad guys did not have such good luck. The wheel, like most ways of putting people to death at the time, was open to the public so that everyone could see. The breaking wheel was mostly used in the Roman Empire and in France and Germany in the Middle Ages. However, a study from 2019 shows that at least one model was used in Milan, Italy.”
“Impalement. A few times in the 1400s, Vlad III was the Vuvode or prince of Wakia, which is now Romania. Besides Dracula, which meant he was the son to his father Vlad III Draul, he was also known as Uppesh, which means impaler. The second nickname came from the way he liked to kill his enemies.”
“About 80,000 people were killed by Vlad III, and at least 20,000 of them were killed by being stabbed. People would have a spire made of metal or wood put into their bodies. Some were pierced horizontally with the spike going through their chest and out their back, while others were pierced vertically.”
“People say that Vlad once ate in a forest full of dead bodies that had been stabbed. Vlad was without a doubt the most famous person who used impalement. But he wasn’t the only person who liked it. In Voyages to the East Indies, Dutch traveler Johan Splinter Stavarinus wrote in great detail about something he saw in Betavia, which was the capital of the Dutch East Indies.”
“Stavarinus saw a slave being hacked to death for killing his master. He said that the killers cut the victim near the spine and then put the spike through his back and out near his neck. The man is said to have died the next day, but Stavverinus says that some people who were impaled, lived for more than a week without being able to eat or drink. Blood Eagle.”
“From the 9th century to the 11th, a group of Scandinavians, mostly Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, took to the seas to steal from and raid most of Europe. For generations, people have been obsessed with the violent and brutal images of the Vikings that have been used in popular culture. The blood eagle, a way of killing them, was one of the most questionable parts of their claimed cruelty.”
“The process involved breaking the victim’s ribs, cutting open their back, and pulling their still working lungs through the hole, making what looked like red wings. The picture does make you think, but it’s also questionable from a historical point of view. The blood eagle shows up in writing and poems from before the 11th century and after.”
“Maybe it did happen, but probably not as often as some historically questionable TV shows like Vikings might make it seem. An article in the University of Chicago Press journals breaks down the way of torture from both a biological and a cultural point of view. There is no doubt that it could have happened, but the victim would have probably already died by the time the right was supposed to end.”
“The writing says it was done to get back at someone for killing a family member, which fits with the cultural trend of bad deaths. Poena Koulle the Romans came up with and used some of the most creative ways to hurt people ever. Many of them were so silly, complicated, and useless that not even the tyrants who run several autocratic states today would try to make them again.”
“Pena Kool, which means the punishment of the sack, may have been their strangest idea. It might have been more of a threat than a common fact. In book 48 of the digest or Pandex, it says that people who killed a close family member would be severely beaten with iron rods. After that, the person was sewed up in a sack with a dog, a [ __ ] a viper, and an ape and thrown into the ocean.”
“A lot of scholars disagree on what really happened with the sack in the past. Pooule was last used in Germanic society in the 18th century, but it was still a very rare way to kill someone. Many people question whether it was even used, pointing out how hard it would have been to keep all of these animals in one bag before putting them in the water.”
“In ancient Rome, however, it was common to punish people with animals. This one fits right in with that trend. Condemnation to the beast. The Romans were known for making a show out of punishing people violently. Anyone who has seen a movie set in ancient Rome knows that the Colosseum was the site of almost every event you can think of.”
“That’s the real reason the Colosseum in Rome was built. The most common picture is two warriors fighting to the death in front of a crowd of people who are there to watch. The second most common image is a warrior fighting a huge beast. People who were put through this process called damnio at bestius or condemnation to the beasts were put up against wild dogs, bears, and lions.”
“A lot of people were very excited about this way of putting people to death. Senica the younger said of condemnation to the beasts in the morning men were thrown to lions and to bears at midday to the spectators. As an eyewitness he spoke to the fervor of the crowd who would demand to see deaths in every event. By cases Dio’s account very few wild beasts perished but a great many human beings did.”
“Countless prisoners, rebellious slaves, and other convicts were torn apart by predators for the pleasure of an audience. Lynchi. Today, the term death by a thousand cuts is often used as a metaphor. But in ancient China, it meant the most severe form of the death penalty. Lingi, whose name means slow slicing, was only given to traitors, killers, and people who were thought to be witches.”
“People who broke the law would be tied to a cross or pole and cut slowly with a sharp knife. The executioner would decide how many cuts to make and where to put them. Some people got eight cuts in certain places, while others got hit with the blade over 100 times. Usually, the person carrying out the execution would make the criminal suffer as long as possible before killing them.”
“A changed form of lingchi was used in the horrible execution of father Joseph Marshon in 1835. Marshand would later be honored for his pain. It is said that the goal of lingi was to destroy both the body and mind of the person who was condemned. This level of mutilation would affect the victim’s soul and make it impossible for them to come back after death in any way that can be recognized.”
“China also used cutting off someone’s head and suffocating them as ways to kill people. Slow slicing was only used for the worst criminals. Sometimes the chopped head of the victim would be shown to other people who might be interested in committing crimes as an example. It was banned by the Chinese government in 1905 along with a number of other punishments that were similar. Rats and coals.”
“Popular culture today has a way of taking old ways of torturing and making them seem more important. When screenwriters and authors find a few historical accounts of cruel people who lost control, they use those ideas in something more common to make those stories into widespread nightmares.”
“That is definitely what has happened with rat torture. A way to kill someone by making mice attack and hurt their victims. One example is the rats dungeon in the Tower of London where a victim was left in a room that would fill up with rats, some of which would finally bite the prisoner. There was a much worse one in the Dutch Republic.”
“In the rise of the Dutch Republic by John Loth Mley, the author writes about how a father and son were wrongly accused of plotting against a local ruler and went through a lot of pain. The father died quickly, but the son was on the rack. burned, flayed, and stretched out.”
“The torturers used a speciallymade pottery bowl that was full of rats and put hot coals in the other side. So to get away from the heat, the rats had to scratch, bite, and dig through the flesh of the victim. Mosley said the rats gnored into the very bowels of the victim in their agony to escape. A few historical books talk about this disgusting idea, but movies like Too Fast, Too Furious and Terrifier 3 keep it alive.”
“Keelhauling. We’ve all heard of pirates in movies threatening to keelhaul an enemy, but not many of those stories went into detail about what that word meant. Like the word keelhauling suggests, this is the act of pulling someone along the keel of a ship with a long rope.”
“If a sailor broke the pirates surprisingly good rules, they would tie them up, throw them overboard, and then drag them against the bottom of the ship. The bottom of almost every ship would be covered in barnacles, which would cut the person who was keelhauling badly. Many people broke their legs or drowned after doing keelhauling more than once.”
“Different historical reports disagree on what keelhauling was used for in general. There may have been different forms of the strategy that were more dangerous than others, but sources say that the original goal was not to kill the victim. In his 1780 dictionary of military terms, William Falconer says that many victims were given a short break between trips below the ship.”
“This helped them get better, but it also made them lose consciousness. Falconer’s report suggests that keelhauling is more of a form of torture than an execution. It also says that it has peculiar propriety in the depth of winter. If the sailors did their jobs right, victims would be close to dying, but not actually die. La Perila.”
“Today, no one tortured people as much as Austo Pinocha did. In 1973, Pinocha led a military coup backed by the United States against Chile’s democratic socialist government. He took power and quickly used it against the people. Pinocha’s government used some of the worst actions you can imagine against scared, helpless people by calling them enemies of the state.”
“A stronger electric shock called Laareia or the grill was one of Pino’s favorite ways to get things done. The victims were tied to a metal bed frame that had electrical wires connected to it. The wires sent huge amounts of voltage through the body of the victim. Sheila Cassidy, a torture survivor who wrote for the Guardian, called La Perilia their favorite aid to interrogation.”
“A lot of Pinocha’s victims have said that they were shocked over and over again, which shows that this was a very normal way that they did things. Leia Perez, another young person tortured by Pinocha for no clear reason, told Amnesty International that the people who hurt her used a bunk bed. “There was another detainee on top, and my partner was tied to the side,” she said, adding that they had all been abused for hours, one after the other.”
“She says that the event makes people thirsty. Necklacing being on the right side of history doesn’t mean that a group can’t do horrible things. In the past, people who rose up against an unfair system had to use very bad methods. Apartheid in South Africa was one of the most unfair systems in history. Necklacing, a public way to kill people, was the biggest sin of the South African freedom fighters.”
“In the fight against the apartheid government, soldiers would often tie up party members who were not loyal and people they thought were spies. A tire full of fuel was dropped onto the victim’s necks and set on fire, killing them horribly in the flames. The death of Maki Scosa on TV was the most well-known case of necklacing.”
“She was the first person accused of being a victim. Her crime was allegedly setting off a hand bomb that killed several children. Anti-aparttheid rebels got some bad press for crimes like necklacing, but the African National Congress party mostly kept quiet about it. In the end, some highlevel members of the party that put Nelson Mandela in power admitted that they could have done more to stop attacks on his neck.”
“ANC leader Oliver Tambo disavowed necklacing but argued that the actions originated from the extremes to which people were provoked by the unspeakable brutalities of the apartheid system. Crucifixion because of what happened to Jesus of Nazareth. The crucifixion may be the most famous way to kill someone ever.”
“Jesus’s story is a pretty typical example of how terrible it is, even when there are religious aspects. In the ancient world, people who were against the religious or government order were often put to death on a cross. People were beaten and made to carry a big wooden cross beam to where they were going to be killed.”
“After that, they would be lifted and tied to a tall stick which would hang them about 10 ft above the ground. They would slowly die from the weight of their own bodies. Jesus was the most famous person who died on the cross. But he wasn’t the only one. Researchers think that the idea came from the Assyrians and Babylonians, but the Persians used it a lot more.”
“The Phoenetians probably learned about it from Alexander the Great, and then they told the Romans about it. For the next 500 years, the Romans carried out crucifixions, but Emperor Constantine I made it illegal. Even though they don’t happen very often these days, crucifixions have been reported from Syria and Yemen in the 20110s.”
“human experimentation. Many people who are already in jail have been used against their will for science throughout history. This has probably been going on for thousands of years. Starting with prisoners who didn’t want to be vivisectioned between 300 and 200 BC. By butchering people on hospital tables, early scientists learned a lot about how people work on the inside.”
“Doctors have been testing on newly executed people for generations to see how long their brains stayed active. An American doctor in the Philippines in 1906 gave 24 prisoners an experimental vaccine that caused a plague that killed 13 of them. Most of the time, experiments were done more for practical reasons than as punishment.”
“Nazi Germany put people in concentration camps and used them as test subjects for horrible science experiments. These people were often accused of breaking unfair and silly laws. Nazi doctors like Joseph Mangallay were behind some of the scariest experiments ever done on humans. For example, they tested ways to sterilize large groups of people and knowingly hurt or infected victims with diseases to test new ways to treat them.”
“It was because of these experiments that the Nuremberg code was made which says that the voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. Gibbiting in everyday language a gibbit is the same thing as a gallows which is the building from which a noose hangs. Gibbiting which means hanging in chains was a lot like a normal hanging but it was done for a very different reason.”
“The tool is made up of a tall wooden post, a short chain, and a cage that the subject would be locked in. In some art, this is shown as a metal box that the victim would sit or crouch in. But in reality, many of them were attached to the rib cage and let the body move freely. Most of the time, jibbiting was done after the fact as a punishment.”
“The rotting body was meant to be shown to everyone as a form of shame and punishment. Unfortunately, some people experienced the chains before they were normally put to death. When the English were in their home country, they mostly jibbited dead bodies. But when they were in their plantation countries, they were much cruer.”
“English farmers in Antigga, Jamaica, and even colonial America hung slaves from trees with chains around their necks. Because these people were usually involved in slave revolts, the English used them as examples of killers in their own country. If someone was jibbited alive, they would suffer and die slowly from lack of food and water in front of their own people for years.”
“They would die and rot in busy streets so that other people could see them.”
