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

The torture of the Inquisition had hundreds of varieties. Some medieval instruments of torture have survived to this day, but most often even museum exhibits have been restored according to descriptions. Their variations are amazing. Before you are twenty instruments of torture of the Middle Ages.

These are iron shoes with a sharp spike under the heel. The spike could be unscrewed with a screw. With the spike unscrewed, the torture victim had to stand on his toes as long as he had the strength. Stand on your tiptoes and see how long you can last.

Four spikes - two digging into the chin, two - into the sternum, did not allow the victim to make any head movements, including lowering his head lower.

The sinner was tied to an armchair suspended from a long pole, and lowered under water for a while, then they were allowed to take a breath of air, and again - under water. A popular time of year for such torture is late autumn or even winter. An ice hole was made in the ice, and after a while the victim not only suffocated under water without air, but even in such a welcome air was covered with a crust of ice. Sometimes the torture lasted for days.

This is such a fastening on the leg with a metal plate, which, with each question and the subsequent refusal to answer it, as required, tightened more and more to break the bones of the person's legs. To enhance the effect, sometimes an 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 crushed, and the wounded skin looked like a bag for these bones.

This method was "peeped" by the inquisitors in the east. The sinner was tied with barbed wire or strong ropes to a special wooden device such as a table with a strongly raised middle - so that the sinner's stomach would stick out as far as possible. His mouth was stuffed with rags or straw so that it would not close, and a tube was inserted into his mouth, through which an incredible amount of water was poured into the victim. If the victim did not interrupt this torture in order to confess to something, or the purpose of the torture was unequivocal death, at the end of the test, the victim was removed from the table, laid on the ground, and the executioner jumped on her swollen stomach. The ending is understandable and disgusting.

It is clear that it was not used to scratch your back. The victim's flesh was torn - slowly, painfully, to the point that with the same hooks, not only pieces of the body, but also the ribs were pulled out from her.

The same rack. There were two main options: vertical, when the victim was hung from the ceiling, twisting the joints and hanging all the heavy weights from her legs, and horizontal, when the body of the sinner was fixed on the rack and stretched by a special mechanism until her muscles and joints were torn .

The victim was tied to four horses - by the arms and legs. Then the animals were allowed to run. There were no options - only death.

This device was inserted into the holes of the body - it is clear that not in the mouth or ears - and opened so as to inflict unimaginable pain on the victim, tearing these holes.

In many Catholic countries, the clergy believed that the soul of a sinner could still be cleansed. For these purposes, they had to use either pouring boiling water into the sinner's throat or throwing hot coals into the same place. You understand that in caring for the soul there was no place for caring for the body.

Assumed two extreme ways of exploitation. In cold weather, like a witch's bathing chair, the sinner in this cage, suspended from a long pole, was lowered under water and taken out of it, making him freeze and suffocate.

And in the heat, the sinner hung in it in the sun for as many days as he could endure without a drop of water to drink.

How a sinner could somehow repent of something, when at first his teeth clenched and crumbled, then his jaw crumbled, followed by the bones of the skull - until the brain poured out of his ears - it is not clear. There is information that in some countries a version of this crusher is still used as an interrogation tool.

This was the main way to eradicate the witch's influence on other people's sinless souls. The burnt soul ruled out any possibility of embarrassing or soiling the sinless soul. What doubts can there be?

The know-how belongs to Hippolyte Marsili. At one time, this instrument of torture was considered loyal - it did not break bones, it did not tear ligaments. First, the sinner was lifted on a rope, and then he sat down 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 lost consciousness. It was lifted, "pumped out" and again planted on the Cradle.

15. Cradle

Cousin of the Cradle of Judas. It is unlikely that the picture leaves room for imagination, how this instrument of torture was used. Also a fair amount of crap.

This is a huge sarcophagus in the form of an open empty female figure, inside which numerous blades and sharp spikes are fixed. They are located in such a way that the vital organs of the victim imprisoned in the sarcophagus are not affected, so the agony of the condemned to death was long and painful.

The Virgin was first used in 1515. The condemned man died for three days.

Central Europe is the main place of his popularity. The sinner was stripped naked, put on a chair studded with spikes. It was impossible to move - otherwise, not only stab wounds appeared on the body, but also tears. If this was not enough for the inquisitors, they took spikes or tongs in their hands and tormented the limbs of the victim.

In the East they came up with this terrible execution. The fact is that a person who was skillfully impaled - his end had to stick out of the victim's throat (and not as shown in this picture), could live for several more days - suffer physically and mentally, since this execution was public.

The executioners and inquisitors of those years showed remarkable ingenuity in their work. They knew perfectly well what a person experiences pain from, and they knew that in an unconscious state he would not feel pain. And what is the execution in the Middle Ages without sadism? A person could meet ordinary death everywhere, it was not uncommon. And an unusual and very painful death is sawing. The victim was hung upside down so that the blood would not stop supplying oxygen to the head, and the person experienced the full horror of pain. It used to happen that he lived to see the moment when they slowly, slowly managed to saw his body up to the diaphragm.

Sentenced to wheeling with an iron crowbar or wheel, all the large bones of the body were broken, then he was tied to a large wheel, and the wheel was mounted on a pole. The condemned would end up face up, looking up at the sky, and die like that from shock and dehydration, often for quite a long time. The suffering of the dying man was aggravated by the birds pecking at him. Sometimes, instead of a wheel, they simply used a wooden frame or a cross made of logs.

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1. Red tulip.
This torture is modern, it was used by dushmans against captured Russian soldiers in Afghanistan. First, the prisoner was drugged, then hung up by the arms. Then the torture began, the prisoner of war was cut off the skin in special places, while not touching the large vessels and pulled it from the body to the waist, as a result, the skin hung down in patches, exposing the flesh. Often people died during the procedure itself, but if suddenly the victim remained alive, then, as a rule, death came after the effect of the drug was removed: from pain shock or blood loss.

2. Torture by rats.
This torture was very common in ancient China, but it was first used in the 16th century by Didrik Sonoy, the leader of the Dutch Revolution. First, the prisoner was completely undressed and placed on the table, tightly tied, then a cage with hungry rats was placed on his stomach. Thanks to a special arrangement of the cage, the bottom was opened, and hot coals were placed on top of the cage itself, which slowed down the rats. As a result, the rats in a panic began to look for a way out, and the only way out was the human stomach.

3. Chinese bamboo torture.
Many have heard about this torture, it was even tested in the well-known program “Mythbusters”, where the myth turned out to be “confirmed”. It consists in the following: bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants on Earth, while some of its varieties can grow by a meter per day. The victim was tied up and placed belly over bamboo sprouts, as a result, bamboo sprouted through the body, delivering wild torment to the person.

4. Copper bull.
This instrument of torture was made by the coppersmith Perillus, who eventually sold it to the Sicilian tyrant Falaris. Falaris was famous for his love of torture, so the first thing he decided to check the work of this bull. The first victim was the creator of this bull, Perillus, for his greed. The bull was a hollow copper statue, where a person was placed through a special door. Further, a fire was made under the bull and the victim was boiled alive there, and the bull was made in such a way that all the cries of the victim came out through the mouth of the bull. By the way, Falaris himself was also fried in this bull.

5. Implantation of metal.
In the Middle Ages, the method of implanting metal under the skin of the victim was used. First, the flesh was cut, and then some piece of metal was put there and it was all sewn up. After some time, the metal began to oxidize and caused severe pain to the poor. From this pain, people themselves often tore their flesh and pulled out the ill-fated piece of iron, eventually dying from blood loss.

6. Pectoral.
The pectoral is a feminine adornment, which was a modern bra made of precious metals and decorated with precious stones and patterns. It is not difficult to guess that torture got this name for a reason. It was used during the Inquisition. The executioner took the pectoral with tongs, heated it to red and put it on the woman's chest. As soon as the pectoral cooled down from the body, he again heated it and applied it, and so on until the victim confessed to something. Often, after such torture, only charred holes remained from the woman’s chest.

7. Shiri.
This torture was used by the nomadic peoples of the Zhuanzhuang, who consecrated slaves in this way. What was the torture? First, the slave’s head was shaved, then they wrapped it with pieces of skin from a freshly killed camel (which means the word “wide”), then they shackled his neck in a wooden block, which did not allow the slave to touch his head, and also did not allow his head to touch the ground. As a result, the slave was taken away to the desert and left there in the very sun for five days, without food and water. From the scorching sun, the patches of camel skin began to tighten with great force, which caused hellish pain to a person. In addition, the sprouting hair on the head also did not find an outlet and grew right in breadth. After 5 days, as a rule, all the slaves died, but if someone remained alive, it was believed that the goal was achieved.

8. Inflate.
Slaves became the main objects of this torture, and according to one version, this was practiced by Peter 1 himself. First, a person was tightly tied, then his mouth, nose, and ears were covered with cotton. Then bellows were inserted into his ass and inflated, as a result, the person became like an inflated balloon. The final was an incision above the eyebrows, from where, as a result of high pressure, blood quickly came out, which killed the victim.

9. Death by an elephant.
This method was practiced in India. As expected, the victim was tied hand and foot and left to lie on the ground. Then a trained elephant was brought into the room. The trainer gave commands to the elephant and he crushed parts of the victim's body to the delight of the public, the final of this torture was a crushed head.

10. Skafism.
This torture was popular in ancient Persia. First, the victim was forcibly given milk and honey to drink, then they were placed in a shallow trough and tightly tied. Thus, the victim remained in the trough for several days, as a result of which, from the abundance of milk and honey in the stomach, the intestines were emptied. Further, this trough was placed in a swamp and it swam there, attracting the attention of hungry creatures. Naturally, the eaters were quickly and in the end they ate the prisoner alive.

Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants on Earth. Some of its Chinese varieties can grow as much as 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) Live bamboo sprouts are sharpened with a knife to make sharp “spears”;
2) The victim is suspended horizontally, back or belly over a bed of young pointed bamboo;
3) Bamboo grows rapidly in height, pierce into the skin of the martyr and sprout through his abdominal cavity, the person dies very long and painfully.
2. Iron Maiden

Like torture with bamboo, many researchers consider the "iron maiden" a terrible legend. Perhaps these metal sarcophagi with sharp spikes inside only frightened the defendants, after which they confessed to anything. The "iron maiden" was invented at the end of the 18th century, i.e. already at the end of the Catholic Inquisition.
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 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 confession, which the arrested person only has to sign;
3) If the prisoner shows fortitude and continues to be 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 his 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 in order to quickly poke them out.
3. Skafism
The name of this torture comes from the Greek "skafium", which means "trough". Skafism 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 that were not indifferent to human flesh and blood.
How it works?
1) The prisoner is placed in a shallow trough and wrapped in chains.
2) He is force-fed with large amounts of milk and honey, which causes the victim to develop copious diarrhea that attracts insects.
3) A prisoner, shabby, smeared with honey, is allowed to swim in a trough in a swamp, where there are many hungry creatures.
4) Insects immediately start the meal, as the main dish - the living flesh of the martyr.
4. Terrible pear


“There is a pear - you can’t eat it,” it is said about the medieval European tool for “educating” blasphemers, liars, women who gave birth out of wedlock, and gay men. Depending on the crime, the tormentor put the pear into the sinner's mouth, anus or vagina.
How it works?
1) The tool, consisting of pointed pear-shaped leaf-shaped segments, is thrust into the client's desired hole in the body;
2) The executioner slowly 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, the completely guilty person receives internal injuries incompatible with life and dies in terrible agony, if he has not already fallen into unconsciousness.
5. Copper bull


The design of this death unit was developed by the ancient Greeks, or to be more precise, the coppersmith Perill, who sold his terrible bull to the Sicilian tyrant Falaris, who simply adored torturing and killing people in unusual ways.
Inside the copper statue, through a special door, they pushed a living person.
So
Falaris first tested the unit on its creator, the greedy Perilla. Subsequently, Falaris himself was roasted in a bull.
How it works?
1) The victim is closed in a hollow copper statue of a bull;
2) A fire is kindled under the belly of the bull;
3) The victim is roasted alive, like a ham in a frying pan;
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 in the bazaars and were in great demand ..
6. Torture by rats


Rat torture 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, Didrik Sonoy.
How it works?
1) The naked martyr is laid 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 with a special valve;
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.
7. Cradle of Judas

The Cradle of Judas was one of the most painful torture machines in the arsenal of the Suprema - the Spanish Inquisition. The victims usually died from the 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", because 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 pierces the anus or vagina;
3) With the help of ropes, the victim is gradually lowered lower and lower;
4) 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.
8. Elephant trampling

For several centuries, this execution was practiced in India and Indochina. The elephant is very easy to train and to teach him to trample the guilty victim with his huge feet is a matter of several days.
How it works?
1. The victim is tied to the floor;
2. A trained elephant is brought into the hall to crush the head of the martyr;
3. Sometimes before the "control in the head" animals squeeze the victims' arms and legs in order to amuse the audience.
9. Rack

Probably the most famous, and unsurpassed in its kind, death machine called "rack". It was first experienced around 300 AD. on the Christian martyr Vincent of Zaragoza.
Anyone who survived the rack could no longer use their muscles and 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, holding the wrists and ankles of the victim. When the rollers rotated, the ropes stretched in opposite directions, stretching the body;
2. Ligaments in the hands and feet of the victim are stretched and torn, bones pop out of the 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 was tied with his hands behind his back and lifted by the rope tied to his hands. Sometimes a log or other weights were attached to his bound legs. At the same time, the hands of a person raised on a rack twisted back and often came out of their joints, so that the convict had to hang on twisted 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 a rack was beaten with a whip on the back, and “applied to the fire”, that is, they drove burning brooms over the body.
5. In some cases, the executioner broke the ribs of a person hanging on a rack with red-hot tongs.
10. Paraffin in the bladder
A savage form of torture, the actual use of which has not been established.
How it works?
1. Candle paraffin was rolled out by hand into a thin sausage, which was injected through the urethra;
2. Paraffin slipped into the bladder, where it began to precipitate solid salts and other filth.
3. The victim soon developed kidney problems and died of acute kidney failure. On average, death occurred in 3-4 days.
11. Shiri (camel cap)
A monstrous fate awaited those whom the Zhuanzhuans (the union of nomadic Turkic-speaking peoples) took into their slavery. They destroyed the memory of the slave with a terrible torture - by putting Shiri on the head of the victim. Usually this fate befell young guys captured in battles.
How it works?
1. First, the slaves shaved their heads, carefully scraping out every hair under the root.
2. The executioners slaughtered the camel and skinned its carcass, first of all, separating its heaviest, densest part.
3. Having divided the neck into pieces, it was immediately pulled in pairs over the shaved heads of the prisoners. These pieces, like a plaster, stuck around the heads of slaves. This meant putting on wide.
4. After putting on the width, the neck of the doomed was shackled 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 cries, and they were thrown there in an open field, with 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 torments caused by drying out, shrinking rawhide camel skin on the head. Inexorably shrinking under the rays of the scorching sun, the width squeezed, squeezing 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 bent and again went into the scalp with its ends, causing even greater suffering. A day later, the man lost his mind. Only on the fifth day did the Zhuanzhuans come to check whether any of the prisoners had survived. If at least one of the tortured was caught alive, it was believed that the goal was achieved. .
7. The one who was subjected to 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.
12. Implantation of metals
A very strange means of torture-execution was used in the Middle Ages.
How it works?
1. A deep incision was made on a person’s legs, where a piece of metal (iron, lead, etc.) was placed, after which the wound was sutured.
2. Over time, the metal oxidized, poisoning the body and causing terrible pain.
3. Most often, the poor fellows tore the skin in the place where the metal was sewn up and died from blood loss.
13. Dividing a person into two parts
This terrible execution originated in Thailand. The most hardened criminals were subjected to it - mostly murderers.
How it works?
1. The accused is placed in a hoodie woven from lianas, and he is stabbed with sharp objects;
2. After that, his body is quickly cut into two parts, the upper half is immediately placed on a red-hot copper grate; this operation stops the bleeding and prolongs the life of the upper part of the person.
A small addition: This torture is described in the book of the Marquis de Sade "Justine, or the successes of vice." This is a small excerpt from a large piece of text where de Sade allegedly describes the torture of the peoples of the world. But why supposedly? According to many critics, the Marquis was very fond of lying. He had an extraordinary imagination and a couple of manias, so this torture, like some others, could be a figment of his imagination. But the field of this is not worth referring to Donatien Alphonse as Baron Munchausen. This torture, in my opinion, if it did not exist before, is quite realistic. If, of course, a person is drugged with painkillers before this (opiates, alcohol, etc.), so that he does not die before his body touches the bars.
14. Inflation with air through the anus
A terrible torture in which a person is pumped with air through the anus.
There is evidence that in Russia even Peter the Great himself sinned with this.
Most often, thieves were executed in this way.
How it works?
1. The victim was tied hand and foot.
2. Then they took cotton and stuffed the ears, nose and mouth of the poor fellow with it.
3. Bellows were inserted into his anus, with the help of which a huge amount of air was pumped into a person, as a result of which he became like a balloon.
3. After that, I plugged his anus with a piece of cotton.
4. Then they opened two veins above his eyebrows, from which all the blood flowed under great pressure.
5. Sometimes a bound person was placed naked on the roof of the palace and shot with arrows until he died.
6. Prior to 1970, this method was often used in Jordanian prisons.
15. Polledro
The Neapolitan executioners lovingly called this torture "polledro" - "colt" (polledro) and were proud that it was first used in their native city. Although history did not preserve the name of its inventor, they said that he was an expert in horse breeding and came up with an unusual device to pacify his horses.
Only a few decades later, lovers of mocking people turned the horse breeder's device into a real torture machine for people.
The machine was a wooden frame, similar to a ladder, the transverse rungs of which had very sharp corners so that when a person was placed on them with his back, they crashed into the body from the back of the head to the heels. The staircase ended with a huge wooden spoon, in which, like a cap, they put their heads.
How it works?
1. Holes were drilled on both sides of the frame and in the “bonnet”, ropes were threaded into each of them. The first of them was tightened on the forehead of the tortured, the last tied the big toes. As a rule, there were thirteen ropes, but for especially stubborn ones, the number was increased.
2. With special devices, the ropes were pulled tighter and tighter - it seemed to the victims that, having crushed the muscles, they dug into the bones.
16. Dead man's bed (modern China)


The "dead man's bed" torture is used by the Chinese Communist Party mainly on those prisoners who try to protest their illegal imprisonment through a hunger strike. In most cases, these are prisoners of conscience who went to prison for their beliefs.
How it works?
1. The hands and feet of a naked prisoner are tied to the corners of the bed, on which, instead of a mattress, there is a wooden board with a hole cut out. A bucket for excrement is placed under the hole. Often, ropes are tightly tied to the bed and the body of a person so that he cannot move at all. In this position, a person is continuously from several days to weeks.
2. In some prisons, such as Shenyang City No. 2 Prison and Jilin City Prison, the police still place a hard object under the victim's back to increase the suffering.
3. It also happens that the bed is placed vertically and for 3-4 days a person hangs, stretched by the limbs.
4. Force-feeding is added to these torments, which is carried out with the help of a tube inserted through the nose into the esophagus, into which liquid food is poured.
5. This procedure is done mainly by prisoners on the orders of the guards, and not by health workers. They do it very rudely and not professionally, often causing more serious damage to the internal organs of a person.
6. Those who have gone through this torture say that it causes displacement of the vertebrae, joints of the arms and legs, as well as numbness and blackening of the limbs, which often leads to disability.
17. Collar (Modern China)

One of the medieval tortures used in modern Chinese prisons is the wearing of a wooden collar. It is put on a prisoner, which is why he cannot walk or stand normally.
The collar is a board from 50 to 80 cm long, from 30 to 50 cm wide and 10 - 15 cm thick. There are two holes for the legs in the middle of the collar.
The shackled victim is difficult to move, must crawl into the bed, and usually must sit or lie down, as the upright position causes pain and injury to the legs. Without assistance, a person with a collar 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 not able to turn around, and in winter, a short blanket does not cover his legs.
An even worse form of this torture is called "crawling with a wooden collar." The guards put a collar on the man and order him to crawl on the concrete floor. If he stops, he is hit on the back with a police baton. An hour later, fingers, toenails and knees bleed profusely, while the back is covered with wounds from blows.
18. Impaling

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 person was inserted into the anus with a stake, which was then driven in with a mallet; then they drove a stake into the ground. The weight of the body forced the stake to go deeper and deeper, and finally it came out under the armpit or between the ribs.
19. Spanish water torture

In order to best perform the procedure of this torture, the accused was placed on one of the varieties of the rack or on a special large table with a rising middle part. After the victim's hands and feet were tied to the edges of the table, the executioner went to work in one of several ways. One of these methods was that the victim was forced to swallow a large amount of water with a funnel, then beaten on the inflated and arched stomach. Another form involved placing a rag tube down the victim's throat, through which water was slowly poured in, causing the victim to bloat and suffocate. If that wasn't enough, the tube was pulled out, causing internal damage, and then reinserted and the process repeated. Sometimes cold water torture was used. In this case, the accused lay naked on the table for hours under a jet of icy water. It is interesting to note that this kind of torture was regarded as light, and confessions obtained in this way were accepted by the court as voluntary and given to the defendants without the use of torture. Most often, these tortures were used by the Spanish Inquisition in order to knock out confessions from heretics and witches.
20. Chinese water torture
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 dripping on his forehead. After a few days, the person froze or went crazy.
21. Spanish chair

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 stocks attached to the legs of the chair. When he was 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 suffering of the poor fellow, the legs were poured with oil from time to time.
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, roasting the buttocks. The well-known poisoner La Voisin was tortured on such an armchair during the famous Poisoning Case in France.
22. GRIDIRON (Grate for torture by fire)


Torture of Saint Lawrence on the gridiron.
This type of torture is often mentioned in the lives of saints - real and fictional, but there is no evidence that the gridiron "survived" until the Middle Ages and had at least little circulation in Europe. It is usually described as a simple metal grate 6 feet long and two and a half feet wide, set 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 rarely resorted to. Firstly, it was easy enough to kill the interrogated person, and secondly, there were a lot of simpler, but no less cruel tortures.
23. Pectoral

Pectoral in ancient times was called a breast adornment for women in the form of a pair of carved gold or silver bowls, often strewn with precious stones. It was worn like a modern bra and fastened with chains.
By a mocking analogy with this decoration, the savage instrument of torture used by the Venetian Inquisition was named.
In 1885, the pectoral was red-hot and, taking it with tongs, put it on the chest of the tortured woman and held until she confessed. If the accused persisted, the executioners heated up the pectoral, cooled by the living body again, and continued the interrogation.
Very often, after this barbaric torture, charred, torn holes remained in place of the woman's breasts.
24. Tickle Torture

This seemingly harmless influence was a terrible torture. With prolonged tickling, a person’s nerve conduction increased so much that even the lightest touch caused at first twitching, laughter, and then turned into terrible pain. If such 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, sensitive places were tickled by the interrogated either simply with hands or with hairbrushes and brushes. Rigid bird feathers were popular. Usually tickled under the armpits, heels, nipples, inguinal folds, genitals, women also under the breasts.
In addition, torture was often used with the use of animals that licked some tasty substance from the heels of the interrogated. A goat was often used, because its very hard tongue, adapted for eating herbs, caused very strong irritation.
There was also a form of beetle tickling, most common in India. With her, a small bug was planted on the head of the penis of a man or on the nipple of a woman and covered with half a nut shell. After some time, the tickling caused by the movement of the legs of an insect over a living body became so unbearable that the interrogated person confessed to anything.
25. Crocodile


These tubular metal tongs "Crocodile" were red-hot and used to tear the penis of the tortured. At first, with a few caressing movements (often performed by women), or with a tight bandage, they achieved a stable hard erection and then the torture began.
26. Serrated crusher


These serrated iron tongs slowly crushed the testicles of the interrogated.
Something similar was widely used in Stalinist and fascist prisons.
27. A terrible tradition.


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 genitalia.
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 rite is done “for the good” of women so that they will never be tempted to cheat on their husband
28. Blood Eagle


One of the most ancient tortures, during which the victim was tied face down and his 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, salt was sprinkled on the wounds of the victim.
Many historians claim that this torture was used by pagans against Christians, others are sure that spouses convicted of treason were punished in this way, and still others claim that the bloody eagle is just a terrible legend.

From the very beginning of human history, people began to invent the most sophisticated methods of execution in order to punish criminals in such a way that other people would remember it and, under pain of a harsh death, they would not repeat such actions. Below is a list of the ten most heinous execution methods in history. Fortunately, most of them are no longer in use.

The bull of Falaris, also known as the copper bull, is an ancient execution tool invented by Perilius of Athens in the 6th century BC. The design was a huge copper bull, hollow inside, with a door on the back or in the side. It had enough space to accommodate a person. The victim was placed inside, the door was closed, and a fire was kindled under the belly of the statue. There were holes in the head and nostrils that allowed the cries of the man inside to be heard, which were like the snarling of a bull.

Interestingly, the creator of the copper bull, Perilaus, was the first to test the device in action on the orders of the tyrant Falaris. The railing was removed from the bull while still alive, and then thrown off the cliff. Falarid himself also suffered the same fate - death in a bull.

Hanging, gutting and quartering - a method of execution, common in England, for treason, which was once considered the most terrible crime. It only applied to men. If a woman was convicted of treason, she was burned alive. Incredibly, this method was legal and relevant until 1814.

First of all, the convict was tied to a horse-drawn wooden sleigh and dragged to the place of death. The offender was then hanged and, just a few moments before death, was taken out of the noose and laid on the table. After that, the executioner castrated and gutted the victim, burning the insides in front of the condemned. Finally, the victim's head was cut off, and the body was divided into four parts. The English official Samuel Pepys, witnessing one of these executions, described it in his famous diary:

“In the morning I met Captain Cuttens, then I got to Charing Cross, where I saw Major General Harrison hanged, gutted and quartered. He tried to look as cheerful as possible in the current situation. He was removed from the noose, then his head was cut off and his heart taken out, showing the crowd, which caused general jubilation. Previously, he judged, and now he was judged.

Usually, all five parts of the executed were sent to different parts of the country, where they were defiantly installed on the gallows as a warning to others.

There were two ways to be burned alive. In the first, the convict was tied to a stake and surrounded with firewood and brushwood, so that he burned inside the flame. It is said that this is how Joan of Arc was burned. Another way was that a person was placed on top of a pile of firewood, bundles of brushwood and tied with ropes or chains to a post, so that the flame slowly rose towards him, gradually covering his entire body.

When the execution was carried out by a skilled executioner, the victim burned in the following sequence: ankles, thighs and arms, torso and forearms, chest, face, and finally, the person died. Needless to say, it was very painful. If a large number of people were to be burned at the same time, the victims would die from carbon monoxide before the fire reached them. And if the fire was weak, then the victim usually died from shock, blood loss, or heat stroke.

In later versions of this execution, the offender was hanged and then burned purely symbolically. This method of execution was used to burn witches in most parts of Europe, however it was not used in England.

Lingchi is a particularly painful method of execution by cutting off small fragments from the body for a long period of time. Practiced in China until 1905. The victim was slowly cut off the arms, legs and chest, until finally the head was cut off and stabbed right in the heart. Many sources claim that the cruelty of this method is greatly exaggerated when they say that the execution could be carried out over several days.

A contemporary witness to this execution, journalist and politician Henry Norman, describes it this way:

“The offender was tied to a cross, and the executioner, armed with a sharp knife, began, grabbing handfuls from the fleshy parts of the body, such as the thighs and chest, to cut them off. After that, he removed the joints and protruding parts of the body, one by one the nose and ears, fingers. Then the limbs were cut off piece by piece at the wrists and ankles, elbows and knees, shoulders and hips. Finally, the victim was stabbed right in the heart, and the head was cut off.”

The wheel, also known as Catherine's Wheel, is a medieval execution device. The man was tied to a wheel. After that, all the large bones of the body were broken with an iron hammer and left to die. The wheel was placed on the top of the pillar, giving the birds the opportunity to profit sometimes from a still living body. This could go on for several days until the person died of pain shock or dehydration.

In France, some indulgences were provided in the execution, when the convict was strangled before the execution.

The convict was stripped naked, and placed in a vat of boiling liquid (oil, acid, resin or lead), or in a container with a cold liquid, which was gradually heated. Criminals could be hung on a chain and immersed in boiling water until they died. During the reign of King Henry VIII, a similar execution was carried out for poisoners and counterfeiters.

Flaying meant execution, during which all the skin was removed from the body of the criminal with a sharp knife, and it had to remain intact for demonstration in order to intimidate. This execution dates back to ancient times. For example, the Apostle Bartholomew was crucified on the cross upside down, and his skin was torn off.

The Assyrians skinned their enemies to show who held power in the captured cities. Among the Aztecs in Mexico, ritual flaying or scalping was common, which was usually performed after the death of the victim.

Although this method of execution has long been considered inhumane and forbidden, in Myanmar, there has been a recorded case of flaying all the men in Karenni village.

African necklace - a type of execution, during which a car tire filled with gasoline or other combustible material was put on the victim, and then set on fire. This led to the fact that the human body turned into a molten mass. Death was extremely painful and was a shocking sight. This type of execution was common in South Africa in the 80s and 90s of the last century.

The African necklace was used against alleged criminals by "people's courts" based in black towns as a means of bypassing the apartheid judiciary (a policy of racial segregation). In this way, members of the community who were considered employees of the regime were punished, including black police officers, city officials, as well as their relatives and partners.

Similar executions have been observed in Brazil, Haiti and Nigeria during Muslim protests.

Scaphism is an ancient Persian method of execution leading to a painful death. The victim was stripped naked and tightly tied inside a narrow boat or hollowed out tree trunk, and covered with the same boat from above so that the arms, legs and head stick out. The victim was forcibly given milk and honey to drink in order to cause severe diarrhea. In addition, the body was also smeared with honey. After that, a person was allowed to swim in a pond with stagnant water or left in the sun. Such a "container" attracted insects that slowly devoured the flesh and laid larvae in it, which led to gangrene. In order to prolong the torment, the victim could be fed every day. Ultimately, death occurred, most likely as a result of a combination of dehydration, exhaustion, and septic shock.

According to Plutarch, by this method in 401 BC. e. Mithridates was executed for killing Cyrus the Younger. The unfortunate man died only after 17 days. A similar method was used by the native inhabitants of America - the Indians. They tied the victim to a tree, rubbed it with oil and mud, and left it to the ants. Usually a person died of dehydration and starvation in a few days.

The sentenced to this execution was hung upside down and sawn vertically in the middle of the body, starting from the groin. Since the body was upside down, the criminal's brain had a constant flow of blood, which, despite the large blood loss, allowed him to remain conscious for a long time.

A similar execution was used in the Middle East, Europe and parts of Asia. It is believed that sawing was the favorite way of executing the Roman emperor Caligula. In the Asian version of this execution, a person was sawn from the head.

With the development of civilization, human life has gained value regardless of social status and wealth. It is all the more terrible to read about the black pages of history, when the law did not just deprive a person of life, but turned the execution into a spectacle for the amusement of ordinary people. In other cases, the execution could be of a ritual or instructive nature. Unfortunately, there are similar episodes in modern history. We have compiled a list of the most brutal executions ever practiced by humans.

Executions of the Ancient World

Skafism

The word "skafism" is derived from the ancient Greek word "trough", "boat", and the method itself went down in history thanks to Plutarch, who described the execution of the Greek ruler Mithridates at the behest of Artaxerxes, the king of the ancient Persians.

First, a person was stripped naked and tied inside two dugout boats in such a way that the head, arms and legs remained outside, which were thickly smeared with honey. The victim was then forcibly fed a mixture of milk and honey to induce diarrhea. After that, the boat was lowered into stagnant water - a pond or lake. Lured by the smell of honey and sewage, the insects clung to the human body, slowly devoured the flesh and laid their larvae in the formed gangrenous ulcers. The victim remained alive for up to two weeks. Death came from three factors: infection, exhaustion and dehydration.

Execution by impalement was invented in Assyria (modern Iraq). In this way, residents of rebellious cities and women who had an abortion were punished - then this procedure was considered infanticide.

The execution was carried out in two ways. In one version, the convict was pierced in the chest with a stake, in the other, the tip of the stake passed through the body through the anus. Tormented people were often depicted in bas-reliefs as an edification. Later, this execution began to be used by the peoples of the Middle East and the Mediterranean, as well as by the Slavic peoples and some European ones.

Execution by elephants

This method was used mainly in India and Sri Lanka. Indian elephants lend themselves well to training, which was used by the rulers of Southeast Asia.

There were many ways to kill a person with an elephant. For example, armor with sharp spears was put on the tusks, with which the elephant pierced the criminal and then, still alive, tore it apart. But most often, elephants were trained to press down the convict with their foot and alternately tear off the limbs with their trunk. In India, a guilty person was often simply thrown at the feet of an angry animal. For reference, an Indian elephant weighs about 5 tons.

Tradition to the beasts

Behind the beautiful phrase "Damnatio ad bestias" lies the painful death of thousands of ancient Romans, especially among the early Christians. Although, of course, this method was invented long before the Romans. Usually lions were used for execution, less popular were bears, panthers, leopards and buffaloes.

There were two types of punishment. Often a person sentenced to death was tied to a post in the middle of a gladiatorial arena and wild animals were lowered onto it. There were also variations: they threw it to a cage to a hungry animal or tied it to its back. In another case, the unfortunate was forced to fight against the beast. From the weapons they had a simple spear, and from the "armor" - a tunic. In both cases, many spectators gathered for the execution.

death on the cross

The crucifixion was invented by the Phoenicians, an ancient people of seafarers who lived in the Mediterranean. Later, this method was adopted by the Carthaginians, and then by the Romans. The Israelites and Romans considered death on the cross to be the most shameful, because this was how hardened criminals, slaves and traitors were executed.

Before crucifixion, a person was undressed, leaving only a loincloth. He was beaten with leather whips or freshly cut rods, after which he was forced to carry a cross weighing about 50 kilograms to the place of crucifixion. Having dug a cross into the ground near the road outside the city or on a hill, a person was lifted with ropes and nailed to a horizontal bar. Sometimes the convict's legs were crushed with an iron rod beforehand. Death came from exhaustion, dehydration or pain shock.

After the prohibition of Christianity in feudal Japan in the 17th century. crucifixion was used against visiting missionaries and Japanese Christians. The scene of execution on the cross is present in Martin Scorsese's drama Silence, which tells about this period.

Bamboo execution

The ancient Chinese were champions of sophisticated torture and execution. One of the most exotic methods of killing is the stretching of the culprit over the growing shoots of young bamboo. The sprouts made their way through the human body for several days, causing incredible suffering to the executed.

ling chi

"Ling-chi" is translated into Russian as "bites of the sea pike." There was another name - "death by a thousand cuts." This method was used during the reign of the Qing Dynasty, and high-ranking officials convicted of corruption were executed in this way. Every year, 15-20 people were recruited.

The essence of "ling-chi" is the gradual cutting off of small parts from the body. For example, after cutting off one phalanx of the finger, the executioner cauterized the wound and then proceeded to the next one. How many pieces to cut off from the body, the court determined. The most popular verdict was cutting into 24 parts, and the most notorious criminals were sentenced to 3,000 cuts. In such cases, the victim was given opium to drink: so she did not lose consciousness, but the pain made its way even through the veil of drug intoxication.

Sometimes, as a sign of special mercy, the ruler could order the executioner to first kill the condemned with one blow and torture the corpse already. This method of execution was practiced for 900 years and was banned in 1905.

Executions of the Middle Ages

blood eagle

Historians question the existence of the Blood Eagle execution, but it is mentioned in Scandinavian folklore. This method was used by the inhabitants of the Scandinavian countries in the early Middle Ages.

The harsh Vikings killed their enemies as painfully and symbolically as possible. The man's hands were tied and laid on his stomach on a stump. The skin on the back was carefully cut with a sharp blade, then the ribs were pryed with an ax, breaking them out in a shape resembling eagle wings. After that, the lungs were removed from the still living victim and hung on the ribs.

This execution is shown twice in the Vikings series with Travis Fimmel (in episode 7 of season 2 and episode 18 of season 4), although the audience noted the contradictions between the serial execution and the one described in the Elder Edda folklore.

"Bloody Eagle" in the series "Vikings"

Tearing by trees

Such an execution was widespread in many regions of the world, including in Russia in the pre-Christian period. The victim was tied by the legs to two inclined trees, which were then abruptly released. One of the legends says that Prince Igor was killed by the Drevlyans in 945 - because he wanted to collect tribute from them twice.

Quartering

The method was used as in medieval Europe. Each limb was tied to horses - the animals tore the sentenced into 4 parts. In Russia, they also practiced quartering, but this word meant a completely different execution - the executioner alternately chopped off his legs with an ax, then his hands, and then his head.

wheeling

Wheeling as a form of the death penalty was widely used in France and Germany during the Middle Ages. In Russia, this type of execution is also known at a later time - from the 17th to the 19th centuries. The essence of the punishment was that at first the guilty person was tied to the wheel, facing the sky, fixing his arms and legs on the knitting needles. After that, his limbs were broken and in this form they were left to die in the sun.

Flaying

Flaying, or skinning, was invented in Assyria, then passed to Persia and spread throughout the ancient world. In the Middle Ages, the Inquisition improved this type of execution - with the help of a device called the "Spanish tickler", a person's skin was torn into small pieces, which were not difficult to tear off.

Welded alive

This execution was also invented in antiquity and received a second wind in the Middle Ages. So they executed mostly counterfeiters. A person convicted of counterfeiting money was thrown into a cauldron of boiling water, tar or oil. This variety was quite humane - the offender quickly died from pain shock. More sophisticated executioners put the condemned man in a cauldron of cold water, which was heated gradually, or slowly lowered him into boiling water, starting with his feet. The welded muscles of the legs were moving away from the bones, and the man was still alive.

Execution by rats

The prisoner's legs and arms were tightly tied to a metal bench, and a cage with rats with a broken bottom was placed on his stomach. Then the executioner brought the burner to the cage, and the animals in a panic began to look for a way out. And he was only one - through the body of the victim.

Modern executions

Dissolution in acid

It is generally accepted that the Sicilian mafia began to dissolve the victims in acid. In this regard, the name of the mafia killer Giovanni Brusca is well known. Suspecting that his comrade was "dripping" the police, Brusca kidnapped his 11-year-old son and dissolved him alive in an acid-filled bathtub.

This execution is also practiced by the extremists of the East. According to Saddam Hussein's former bodyguard, he witnessed an acid execution: first, the victim's legs were lowered into a pool filled with caustic substance, and then they were thrown entirely. And in 2016, ISIS militants dissolved 25 people in a cauldron of acid.

cement boots

This method is well known to many of our gangster movie readers. Indeed, they killed their enemies and traitors with such a cruel method during the mafia wars in Chicago. The victim was tied to a chair, then a basin filled with liquid cement was placed under his feet. And when it froze, the person was taken to the nearest reservoir and thrown off the boat. Cement boots instantly dragged him to the bottom to feed the fish.

Flights of death

In 1976, General Jorge Videla came to power in Argentina. He led the country for only 5 years, but remained in history as one of the most terrible dictators of our time. Among other atrocities of Videla are the so-called "death flights".

A person who opposed the tyrant's regime was drugged with barbiturates and unconsciously carried on board the plane, then thrown down - certainly into the water.

We also invite you to read about the most mysterious deaths in history.
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