It was the worst execution in history. The most terrible executions of the ancient world

This term meant the clarification of the circumstances of the case by an investigation, usually through interrogations, often with the use of force. The torture of the Inquisition had hundreds of varieties.

Chinese Bamboo Torture

The infamous way of the terrible Chinese execution all over the world. Perhaps a legend, because to this day not a single documentary evidence has survived that this torture was actually used.

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

Bamboo grove. (pinterest.com)

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, pierces the skin of the martyr and sprouts through his abdominal cavity, the person dies very long and painfully.

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.

"Iron Maiden"

The Iron Maiden was invented in late XVIII century, i.e. already at the end of the Catholic Inquisition.

"Iron Maiden". (pinterest.com)

How it works?

1) The victim is stuffed into the sarcophagus and the door is closed;
2) The spikes driven into the inner walls of the "iron maiden" are 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 to gouge them out.

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.

Skafism. (pinterest.com)

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.

Pear of suffering

This cruel tool was used to punish women who had abortions, liars and homosexuals. The device was inserted into the vagina in women or the anus in men. When the executioner turned the screw, the “petals” opened, tearing the flesh and bringing unbearable torment to the victims. Many died later from blood poisoning.

Pear of suffering. (pinterest.com)

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 had not already fallen into unconsciousness.

copper bull

The design of this death unit was developed by the ancient Greeks, or to be more precise, by the coppersmith 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. And then Falaris first tested the unit on its creator, the greedy Perilla. Subsequently, Falaris himself was roasted in a bull.

Copper bull. (pinterest.com)

How it works?

1) The victim is closed in a hollow copper statue of a bull;
2) A fire is kindled 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 come from the mouth of the statue, like a bull's roar;
5) Jewelry and charms were made from the bones of the executed, which were sold in the bazaars and were in great demand.

Rat torture was very popular in ancient China. However, we will consider the rat punishment technique developed by the leader of the 16th century Dutch Revolution, Didrik Sonoy.

Rats torture. (pinterest.com)

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.

Cradle of Judas

The cradle of Judas was one of the most tormenting machines in the arsenal of the Suprema, the Spanish Inquisition. The 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", because it did not break bones and did not tear ligaments.

Cradle of Judas. (pinterest.com)

How it works?

1) The victim, whose hands and feet are tied, is seated on the top of a pointed pyramid;
2) The top of the pyramid 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 of impotence and pain, or from blood loss due to rupture of soft tissues.

Rack

Probably the most famous, and unsurpassed in its kind, death machine called "rack". It was first experienced around 300 CE. e. on the Christian martyr Vincent of Zaragoza.

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

Rack. (pinterest.com)

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 and 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 individual cases the executioner broke the ribs of a man hanging on a rack with red-hot tongs.

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 by a terrible torture - by putting Shiri on the head of the victim. Usually this fate befell young guys captured in battles.

Shiri. (pinterest.com)

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. Divided 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 skins of one camel were enough for five or six widths.

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.

Water torture. (pinterest.com)

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 defendant lay naked on the table for hours under a stream of water. ice 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.

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 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.

Spanish armchair. (pinterest.com)

Another version of the Spanish chair was also 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.

Gridiron (grid for torture by fire)

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 an ordinary metal grate, 6 feet long and two and a half feet wide, set horizontally on legs so that a fire can be built under it.

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.

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.

Blood eagle. (pinterest.com)

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.

"Catherine's Wheel"

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

Wheel of Catherine. (pinterest.com)

spanish donkey

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

Spanish donkey. (pinterest.com)

spanish boot

This is such a fastening on the leg with metal plate, which with each question and subsequent refusal to answer it, as required, dragged on more and more in order to break the bones of the man'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.

Spanish boot. (pinterest.com)

Quartering by horses

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

Quartering. (pinterest.com)

On the electric chair, then the ancient world was especially inventive in terms of sophisticated torture and punishment. The types of execution used in the East were especially terrible, and Ancient China distinguished itself in this most of all. It is the Celestial Empire that holds the palm in the invention of executions in the world.

Sadistic executions of ancient China

In ancient times, in the Celestial Empire, they could be executed without trial or investigation for the smallest sins. Once the cooks were sawn in half only because the rice they cooked did not satisfy the owner. Women stripped naked were hung by their hands on rings, and a saw was placed between their legs.

It was impossible to hang on tense hands for a long time, it was also difficult to sit on a sharp saw for a long time - thus, the women sawed themselves.

In general, women in China could be sawn up for any reason.

High-ranking corrupt officials were executed with a terrible execution, which was called "pike bites" or "death by a thousand cuts." Small particles of flesh were gradually cut off from the criminal over the course of a year or six months. To prevent bleeding, the wounds were cauterized with a red-hot iron. In such a situation, suicide seemed to be the highest good, but the executioners vigilantly watched the convict, preventing him from dying prematurely. Terrible physical suffering was accompanied by moral humiliation.

Suicide is just a gift of fate, in the case when a piece of flesh was cut off from a person

And today in China it is not considered a great value. A “suitable” person can easily be stolen on the street and dismantled for organs. State criminals are subjected to almost medieval torture, and women are castrated with laser beams.

Terrible executions of the Ancient East

The ancient East invented executions. Here is a rough list of some of them:

1. Wall punishment.
2. Crucifixion.
3. Impalement.
4. Trough torture.

Cruel executions were also practiced in Ancient Egypt. The method of killing, which was called "punishment by the wall", consisted in the fact that the criminal was walled up alive, as a result of which he died of suffocation.

Crucifixion was first used in Ancient Phoenicia, then this method of execution was borrowed from the Phoenicians by the Carthaginians. After the Punic Wars, the Romans began to execute like this. was considered the most despicable - only slaves or hardened criminals died like that. Roman citizens and other people of the noble class were killed with a sword, with which they cut off their heads quickly and painlessly.

At first they impaled only in Assyria. This type of execution was applied to women who had an abortion and to rioters. As a result of the conquests of the Assyrian empire, this type of execution spread throughout the Mediterranean.

The execution with a trough was one of the most terrible. The body of the convict was placed between two troughs, but the head remained outside. The offender was force-fed by pouring liquid food down his throat. Over time, worms started up in the feces, which ate the body of the unfortunate person alive.

Muslim extremists of the modern East no less cruelly execute their captives. The bloody relay race continues and there is no end in sight.

Terrible torture and executions of medieval Europe

European culture was not so inventive in matters of torture and execution. execution methods were usually imported from the East. Nevertheless, European justice could hardly be called humane.

The following types of punishment were used:

• burn alive at the stake;
• boil alive;
• excoriation;
• bury alive;
• wheeling;
• decapitation;
• hanging;
• cut off ears or hands;
• blindness;
• quartering;
• tearing by horses;
• drowning;
• stoning;
• crucifixion.

Burning at the stake was the punishment for heresy, but in England it was the punishment for adultery. Counterfeiters were boiled alive in cauldrons of boiling oil or tar. Particularly cruel was the version of such an execution, when the convict was first placed in a vat of cold water, and then the water was heated to a boil. The skin was torn off from dangerous state criminals and negligent doctors, and they could remove it not only from a living person, but also from a corpse.

Children were also buried alive for significant theft, and hands were cut off for petty theft. Also, for petty theft or fraud, an ear or ears could be cut off. The recidivist thief was already subject to the death penalty. Only noble gentlemen were blinded, who, for whatever reason, could not be deprived of their lives. Quartering was used as a punishment for high treason, but only men were executed in this way, and in this case women were burned.

Video about the worst executions in the world

Drowning was the punishment for curse words and curses. Tearing by horses, stoning and crucifixion were rare forms of justice. The most humane methods of execution were hanging and beheading - the latter survived until the New Age in the form of a guillotine.

In modern Europe, it is difficult to find even traces of past atrocities, because any kind of torture and the death penalty is strictly prohibited. In the vast majority of European countries, the highest penalty is life imprisonment.

It only remains to be thankful that gloomy tortures and executions are a thing of the distant past, and in modern times they can only be found in backward countries.

Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, execution was considered a preferable punishment compared to prison, because being in prison turned out to be a slow death. Being in prison was paid by relatives, and they themselves often asked that the perpetrator be killed.
They didn’t keep convicts in prisons - it was too expensive. If relatives had money, then they could take their loved one for maintenance (usually he sat in an earthen pit). But a tiny part of society was able to afford it.
Therefore, the main method of punishment for minor crimes (theft, insulting an official, etc.) were stocks. The most common type of block is "kanga" (or "jia"). It was used very widely, since it did not require the state to build a prison, and also prevented the escape.
Sometimes, in order to further reduce the cost of punishment, several prisoners were chained into this neck block. But even in this case, relatives or compassionate people had to feed the criminal.

Each judge considered it his duty to invent his own reprisals against criminals and prisoners. The most common were: sawing off the foot (first they sawed off one foot, the second time the recidivist caught the other), removal of the kneecaps, cutting off the nose, cutting off the ears, branding.
In an effort to make the punishment heavier, the judges invented the execution, which was called "carry out five types of punishments." The offender should have been branded, cut off his arms or legs, beaten to death with sticks, and put his head on the market for all to see.

In the Chinese tradition, beheading was considered a more severe form of execution than strangulation, despite the fact that strangulation is characterized by prolonged torment.
The Chinese believed that the body of a person is a gift from his parents, and therefore it is extremely disrespectful to the ancestors to return a dismembered body to oblivion. Therefore, at the request of relatives, and more often for a bribe, other types of executions were used.

strangulation. The offender was tied to a pole, a rope was wrapped around his neck, the ends of which were in the hands of the executioners. They slowly twist the rope with special sticks, gradually strangling the convict.
The strangulation could last for a very long time, as the executioners at times loosened the rope and allowed the almost strangled victim to take a few convulsive breaths, and then tightened the noose again.

"Cage", or "standing blocks" (Li-chia) - the device for this execution is a neck block, which was fixed on top of bamboo or wooden poles woven into a cage, at a height of about 2 meters. The convict was placed in a cage, and bricks or tiles were placed under his feet, then they were slowly removed.
The executioner removed the bricks, and the man hung with his neck clamped in a block, which began to choke him, this could go on for months until all the supports were removed.

Ling-Chi - "death by a thousand cuts" or "stings of a sea pike" - the most terrible execution by cutting off small pieces from the victim's body for a long period of time.
Such an execution followed high treason and parricide. Ling-chi, in order to intimidate, was performed in public places with a large gathering of onlookers.

For crimes punishable death penalty, and other serious offenses, there were 6 classes of punishments. The first was called lin-chi. This punishment was applied to traitors, parricides, murderers of brothers, husbands, uncles and mentors.
The offender was tied to a cross and cut into either 120, or 72, or 36, or 24 parts. In the presence of extenuating circumstances, his body, as a sign of imperial favor, was cut into only 8 pieces.
The offender was cut into 24 pieces as follows: 1 and 2 blows cut off the eyebrows; 3 and 4 - shoulders; 5 and 6 - mammary glands; 7 and 8 - muscles of the hands between the hand and the elbow; 9 and 10 - muscles of the arms between the elbow and shoulder; 11 and 12 - flesh from the thighs; 13 and 14 - calves of the legs; 15 - they pierced the heart with a blow; 16 - cut off the head; 17 and 18 - hands; 19 and 20 - the remaining parts of the hands; 21 and 22 - feet; 23 and 24 - legs. They cut it into 8 pieces like this: 1 and 2 cut off the eyebrows with blows; 3 and 4 - shoulders; 5 and 6 - mammary glands; 7 - they pierced the heart with a blow; 8 - cut off the head.

But there was a way to avoid these monstrous types of execution - for a large bribe. For a very large bribe, the jailer could give a criminal awaiting death in an earthen pit a knife or even poison. But it is clear that few could afford such expenses.

In antiquity and in the Middle Ages, torture was a cruel reality, and executioners' tools often became the pinnacle of engineering. We have collected 15 of the most terrible torture methods used to deal with witches, dissidents and other criminals.

Excrement bath

During the torture, known as "sitting in the bath", the condemned was placed in a wooden tub so that only the head was sticking out. After that, the executioner smeared his face with milk and honey so that flocks of flies flocked to him, which soon began to lay larvae in the body. The victim was also regularly fed, and in the end, the unfortunate one literally bathed in his excrement. After a few days, the larvae and worms began to devour the victim's body as it began to decompose alive.

copper bull

The device known as the Sicilian bull was created in Ancient Greece and was a copper or brass bull, hollow inside. On his side was a door through which the victim was placed inside. Then a fire was lit under the bull until the metal was white-hot. The screams of the victim were amplified by the iron structure and sounded like the roar of a bull.

Impalement

This punishment gained fame thanks to the famous Vlad the Impaler. The stake was sharpened, buried vertically in the ground, and then a person was placed on it. The victim, under its own weight, slid down the stake, punching the insides. Death did not come instantly, sometimes a person died for three days.

Crucifixion is one of the most famous torture methods of antiquity. This is how Jesus Christ was killed. This is a deliberately slow and painful punishment, in the course of which the convict's hands and feet were tied or nailed to a huge wooden cross. After that, he was left to hang until he died, which usually took several days.

Sprinkler

Typically, this device was filled with molten lead, tar, boiling water, or boiling oil, and then fixed so that the contents dripped onto the victim's stomach or eyes.

"Iron Maiden"

Iron cabinet with hinged front wall and internal space covered with spikes. A man was placed in a closet. Every movement brought terrible pain.

Rope as a murder weapon

The rope is the easiest of all torture devices to use and has been used in many ways. For example, it was used to tie a victim to a tree, leaving it then to be torn to pieces by animals. Also, with the help of an ordinary rope, people were hung or the limbs of the victim were tied to horses, which were allowed to gallop in different directions to tear off the limbs of the convict.

cement boots

Cement boots were invented by the American mafia to execute enemies, traitors and spies. They put their feet in a basin filled with cement. After the cement had dried, the victim was thrown alive into the river.

Guillotine

One of the most famous forms of execution, the guillotine was made from a razor-sharp blade tied to a rope. The head of the victim was fixed with blocks, after which a blade fell from above, cutting off the head. Decapitation was considered an instant and painless death.

Rack

The device, designed to dislocate every joint in the victim's body, was considered the most painful form of medieval torture. The rack was a wooden frame with ropes attached to its lower and upper parts. After the victim was tied up and placed on the platform, the executioner would turn the handle, pulling on the ropes tied to the limbs. The skin, tendons were torn, all the joints came out of the bags, and as a result, the limbs were completely torn off the body.

rat torture

One of the most sadistic methods of torture involved taking a cage with one side open, filling it with large rats, and tying the open side to the victim's body. Then the cell was heated from the opposite side. The natural instinct of rodents made them run away from the heat, and there was only one way - through the body.

Judas torture chair

The terrifying device known as the Judas Chair appeared in the Middle Ages and was used in Europe until the 1800s. The chair was covered with 500 - 1500 spikes and fitted with stiff straps to hold the victim in place. Sometimes a hearth was installed under the seat to heat it from below. Such a chair was often used to scare people into confessing something while they were looking at the tortured victim in the chair.

Sawing

First, the victim was hung upside down, and then sawn alive, starting from the crotch.

Crocodile scissors

Such iron tongs were used to deal with regicides. The tool was heated red-hot, and then they crushed the testicles of the victim and tore them off the body.

wheeling

Torture, also known as Catherine's wheel, was used to slowly kill the victim. First, the limbs of the victim were tied on the spokes of a large wooden wheel, which then slowly rotated. At the same time, the executioner simultaneously broke the limbs of the victim with an iron hammer, trying to break them in many places. After the bones were broken, the victim was left on a wheel, which was raised to a high pillar, so that birds would feed on the flesh of a still living person.

It is known that almost every castle had its own set of torture instruments in the Middle Ages. There was such a terrible collection in the castle of Count Flandry in Belgium. It’s enough to look at to make goosebumps run down your back.

In this post, we want to expand and continue this topic a bit, so we present you with the most terrible executions in the world. The faint of heart may not read.

1. This type of execution was widely used by the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, and then the Romans. With the help of the crucifixion, the most notorious criminals, rebels and slaves were executed. Death by crucifixion was considered shameful. First, the criminal was stripped naked (leaving only a loincloth), then beaten with rods, after which they were forced to carry a huge cross to the place of their execution. After that, the cross was dug into the ground on a hill and a person was lifted on the ropes, after which they were nailed to the cross. Death was long and painful. The man experienced intense thirst, pain and suffering. This is exactly what Jesus Christ suffered. And now the crucifix is ​​a symbol of Christianity.

2. Ling-Chi or Death by a Thousand Cuts. This painful execution was invented in China during the Qing Dynasty. In this way, high-ranking officials who were convicted of corruption were most often executed. The essence of the execution lies in the fact that the offender could be sentenced to a year of torment and the executioner stretched this execution for a year. Every day, the executioner must come to the prisoner's cell and cut off a small part of the body (for example, a piece of a finger), after which he must immediately cauterize the wound to stop the bleeding and the prisoner did not die. The next day, the procedure is repeated, and so on throughout the entire period, until the convict dies. This torture can even be called the most terrible execution.

3. Wall punishment. Ancient Egyptian execution, the meaning of which was to immure the prisoner in the walls of the dungeon, where he slowly died of suffocation.

4. This device resembles a pyramid on legs. The essence of this execution is that the convict is put on this pyramid right on the tip, after which, due to the severity of his weight, the person sank lower and lower along the pyramid, and his body was simply torn and the person felt just wild pain. For greater cruelty, they even hung loads on their feet. Thanks to such an execution, a person could die from several hours to several days. Among other things, this cradle was never washed, so often people suffered from various purulent infections.

5. . It is also a very terrible and terrible execution. The victim was tied to a large wheel, after which the wheel was spinning, and the executioner struck hard blows with a hammer on the limbs, breaking them. After all the limbs were crushed to smithereens, the victim was left to slowly die on this wheel. Often people died from dehydration. Sometimes it happened that the executioner hit the vital organs, then the victim died quickly. Such blows even got their name - "Sweep of mercy."

6. A pretty metal cap was put on the victim's head, and the chin was fixed on the bottom bar. There was a large screw on the caps, which the executioner screwed into the head of the victim. It was one of the favorite tortures of the Spanish Inquisition.

7. Rib hanging. This terrible torture consisted in the fact that a hook was thrust into the side of the condemned person and hung up by the rib, in addition, his hands were tied so that he could not free himself. The man experienced terrible pain and was forced to hang until his death. Often people died in this way simply from dehydration.

8. Skafism. ancient view executions. A person was placed in a tree trunk and only watered to failure. The man was suffering from terrible diarrhea and all these feces accumulated constantly. And from the abundance of honey and feces, a bunch of insects flocked, which began to feed on all this and multiply right in the human skin. Death could also occur after 2 weeks if the person did not die earlier from starvation, dehydration or infection.

9. Flaying. A convicted person was skinned alive. This was done for all to see, and this was done in order to keep other residents in fear and obedience.

10. Crushing. A huge board was placed on the victim, on which a huge load (stones) was gradually placed. As a result, a person died either from lack of air or from crushing.