The most cruel methods of execution in history (photo). The most terrible executions in world history
History knows many sophisticated methods of execution, and judging by how cruel these executions were, we can say that our ancestors were bloodthirsty and evil. They invented more and more new types of execution for their own entertainment.
1.
Death under an elephant 
In Southeast Asia, execution with the help of an elephant, which crushed the condemned, was popular. Moreover, elephants were often trained to act in such a way as to prolong the death of the victim.
2.
Walk the plank 
This form of execution, walking along a plank overboard, was mainly practiced by pirates. The condemned often did not even have time to drown, because the ships were usually followed by hungry sharks.
3.
Bestiary 
Bestiaries were a popular entertainment during the times of Ancient Rome, when the condemned entered the arena against wild, hungry animals. Although sometimes such cases were voluntary and entered the arena in search of money or recognition, mostly political prisoners who were sent to the arena unarmed fell to the mercy of the victims.
4.
Mazzatello 
This execution was named after the weapon (usually a hammer) used to kill the defendant in the Papal States in the 18th century. The executioner read out the accusation in the city square, after which he hit the victim on the head with a hammer. As a rule, this only stunned the victim, after which his throat was cut.
5.
Vertical shaker 
Originating in the United States, this method of capital punishment is now often used in countries such as Iran. Although it is very similar to hanging, there is a significant difference: the victim did not have a hatch opened under his feet or the chair was kicked out from under him, but the condemned man was lifted up using a crane.
6.
Flaying 
Flaying a person's body was often used to instill fear in people, as the flayed skin was then usually nailed to a wall in a public place.
7.
Bloody Eagle 
The Scandinavian sagas described a bloody method of execution: the victim was cut along the spine, then the ribs were broken out so that they resembled the wings of an eagle. Then the lungs were pulled out through the incision and hung on the ribs. At the same time, all the wounds were sprinkled with salt.
8.
Roasting rack 
The victim was secured on a horizontal grate, under which hot coals were placed. After this, she was slowly roasted, often stretching out the execution for hours.
9.
Crushing 
In Europe and America there was also a method similar to Indian elephant crushing, only here stones were used. As a rule, such an execution was used to extract a confession from the accused. Each time the accused refused to confess, the executioner added another stone. And so on until the victim died from suffocation.
10.
Spanish tickler 
The device, also known as cat paws, was used by executioners to tear and skin the victim. Often death did not occur immediately, but later as a result of infection in the wounds.
11.
Burning at the stake 
Historically popular method of capital punishment. If the victim was lucky, he was executed at the same time as several others. This ensured that the fire was much larger and that death was due to carbon monoxide poisoning rather than combustion.
12.
Bamboo 
Extremely slow and painful punishment was used in Asia. The victim was tied over pointed bamboo shoots. Considering that bamboo grows phenomenally quickly (up to 30 cm per day), it grew directly through the victim’s body, slowly piercing it.
13.
Buried alive 
This method has been used by governments throughout history to kill convicted prisoners. One of the last recorded cases was during the Nanjing Massacre in 1937, when Japanese troops buried Chinese people alive.
14.
Lin Chi 
Also known as death by a thousand cuts, this form of execution involved cutting small pieces from the victim's body. At the same time, the executioner tried to preserve the life of the victim as long as possible.
15.
Colombian tie 
Drug cartels in Colombia and the rest of Latin America practice similar executions of traitors who give information to the police or competitors. The victim's throat is cut and the tongue is pulled out through it.
Humanity has always tried to punish criminals in such a way that other people would remember it and, under pain of severe death, they would not repeat such actions. It was not enough to quickly deprive a convict, who could easily turn out to be innocent, of life, which is why they came up with various painful executions. This post will introduce you to similar methods of execution.
Garrote - execution by strangulation or fracture of the Adam's apple. The executioner twisted the thread as tightly as he could. Some varieties of garrote were equipped with spikes or a bolt that broke the spinal cord. This type of execution was widespread in Spain and was outlawed in 1978. Garrote was officially used for the last time in 1990 in Andorra, however, according to some sources, it is still used in India.
Scaphism is a cruel method of execution invented in Persia. The man was placed between two boats or hollowed-out tree trunks, placed on top of each other, with his head and limbs exposed. He was fed only honey and milk, which caused severe diarrhea. They also coated the body with honey to attract insects. After a while, the poor fellow was allowed into a pond with stagnant water, where there was already a huge number of insects, worms and other creatures. They all slowly ate his flesh and left maggots in the wounds. There is also a version that honey attracted only stinging insects. In any case, the person was doomed to long torment, lasting several days and even weeks.
The Assyrians used flaying for torture and execution. Like a captured animal, the man was skinned. They could rip off some or all of the skin.
Ling chi was used in China from the 7th century until 1905. This method involved death by cutting. The victim was tied to poles and deprived of some parts of the flesh. The number of cuts could be very different. They could make several small cuts, cut off some skin somewhere, or even deprive the victim of limbs. The number of cuts was determined by the court. Sometimes convicts were given opium. All this happened in a public place, and even after death, the bodies of the dead were left in plain sight for some time.
Wheeling was used in ancient Rome, and in the Middle Ages it began to be used in Europe. By modern times, wheeling had become widespread in Denmark, Germany, France, Romania, Russia (legislatively approved under Peter I), the USA and other countries. A person was tied to a wheel with large bones already broken or still intact, after which they were broken with a crowbar or clubs. A person who was still alive was left to die of dehydration or shock, whichever came first.
The copper bull is the favorite execution weapon of Phalarids, the tyrant of Agrigentus, who ruled in the second half of the 6th century BC. e. The person sentenced to death was placed inside a life-size hollow copper statue of a bull. A fire was lit under the bull. It was impossible to get out of the statue, and those watching could watch smoke coming out of the nostrils and hear the screams of the dying man.
Evisceration was used in Japan. The convict had some or all of his internal organs removed. The heart and lungs were cut out last to prolong the victim's suffering. Sometimes evisceration served as a method of ritual suicide.
Boiling began to be used about 3000 years ago. It was used in Europe and Russia, as well as some Asian countries. A person sentenced to death was placed in a cauldron, which could be filled not only with water, but also with fat, resin, oil or molten lead. At the moment of immersion, the liquid could already be boiling, or it would boil later. The executioner could hasten the onset of death or, conversely, prolong a person’s torment. It also happened that boiling liquid was poured onto a person or poured down his throat.
Impalement was first used by the Assyrians, Greeks and Romans. They impaled people in different ways, and the thickness of the stake could also be different. The stake itself could be inserted either into the rectum or into the vagina, if they were women, through the mouth or through a hole made in the genital area. Often the top of the stake was blunt so that the victim did not die immediately. The stake with the condemned person impaled on it was raised up and those sentenced to painful death slowly descended down it under the influence of gravity.
Hanging and quartering was used in medieval England to punish traitors to the motherland and criminals who committed a particularly serious act. A person was hanged, but so that he remained alive, after which he was deprived of his limbs. It could go so far as to cut off the unfortunate man’s genitals, gouge out his eyes and cut out his internal organs. If the person was still alive, then at the end his head was cut off. This execution lasted until 1814.
Today we have prepared for you TOP pro the most terrible executions in the world. Many people dream of being in past centuries after watching films that show all the delights of balls, palaces and entertainment of that time. But if you really want to be in the past, then you shouldn’t forget that there was a completely different side of the coin.
Witches were burned at the stake, heretics were killed, and many people were simply tortured to death with impunity so that others would not be bothered. So the topic of today’s article will be about the most terrible executions of the past. So think twice about whether you really want to go back in time, because if something happens, you won’t be able to go to court.
5th place: Impalement
Some of us use an expression that has long been part of the lexicon, namely: “Yes, put him on a stake.” Now we use it only in a figurative sense, but if you were in ancient Rus' and made a bad joke, you might well be personally familiar with this type of execution.
A stake was inserted into the person’s anus, sometimes pointed and sometimes blunt, so that the pain would last longer, and then they placed it vertically. Therefore, under the weight of a person, the stake penetrated deeper and deeper inside, causing unbearable pain and ultimately death.
4th place: Skinning
Another no less sophisticated method of murder, and for many it was such a special way of entertainment. They mostly gathered at some central place so that more people could come and skinned a person alive. Not only did they inflict terrible pain on the offender in this way, but their skin was also left nailed to the walls for a long time, so that, as they say, it would be a shame for others.
3rd place: Bamboo
In Asia, the most attentive people have noticed that bamboo grows very quickly; it can grow up to 30 cm in just a day. Then it was decided that there was no need to get sophisticated and come up with special devices for death when you could use nature for your own purposes. They took the person, tied him to bamboo shoots in a horizontal position and left him like that. The bamboo grew and at the same time permeated the poor man’s body; death was long and terribly painful.
2nd place: Quartering
Practically one of the most terrible types of execution, where the victim simply begs to finish quickly, but this only adds ardor and heat to the audience and the executioner. At the beginning, the guilty ones were slightly stunned so that they would not twitch, so to speak, and then the worst thing began: the person’s stomach was ripped open, the genitals were cut off, cut into 4 parts, and only after that the head was cut off. The spectacle was creepy and bloody, but despite this, it was very popular. One of the most terrible executions in history.
1st place: Lin Chi (Thousand Knives)
Probably the most terrible and painful execution in the world was practiced in China. In general, everything is strict there; you made a mistake, so pay for it in full. Killing simply was considered not a clear enough example for others to not want to do, so the guys from China tied the person up and from time to time cut off a piece of him.
The worst thing of all this is that a person could die for about a month and everyone would walk around and look at it. The judge set a deadline, and the executioner had to meet it exactly so that the person would not die earlier, otherwise the executioner himself could end up in the place of the criminal.
Sometimes it’s scary to think what horrors people can do to their own kind; wars and torture are an integral part of all human history. Maybe this is why nature sometimes rebels against people by sending them, who take even more lives and sweep away everything in their path, to show who is in charge.
It is well known that wars are a time when sometimes all the darkest and cruelest things that exist in human nature awaken in people. Reading the memoirs of eyewitnesses to the events of the Second World War, getting acquainted with the documents, you are simply amazed at human cruelty, which at that time, it seems, simply knew no bounds. And we are not talking about military operations, war is war. We are talking about torture and executions that were applied to prisoners of war and civilians.
Germans
It is well known that representatives of the Third Reich during the war years simply put the matter of extermination of people on stream. Mass executions and killings in gas chambers are striking in their callous approach and scale. However, in addition to these methods of murder, the Germans also used others.
In Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, the Germans practiced burning entire villages alive. There were cases when people who were still alive were thrown into pits and covered with earth.
But this pales in comparison with the cases when the Germans approached the task in a particularly “creative” way.
It is known that in the Treblinka concentration camp, two girls - members of the Resistance - were boiled alive in a barrel of water. At the front, the soldiers had fun tearing apart prisoners tied to tanks.
In France, the Germans used the guillotine en masse. It is known that more than 40 thousand people were beheaded using this device. Among others, the Russian princess Vera Obolenskaya, a member of the Resistance, was executed with the help of the guillotine.
At the Nuremberg trials, cases were made public in which the Germans sawed people with hand saws. This happened in the occupied territories of the USSR.
Even such a time-tested form of execution as hanging, the Germans approached “outside the box.” To prolong the torment of those executed, they were hanged not on a rope, but on a metal string. The victim did not die immediately from a broken vertebrae, as with the usual method of execution, but suffered for a long time. Participants in the conspiracy against the Fuhrer were killed in this way in 1944.
Moroccans
One of the least known pages in the history of World War II in our country is the participation in it of the French expeditionary force, which recruited Moroccan residents - Berbers and representatives of other native tribes. They were called Moroccan Gumiers. The Gumiers fought against the Nazis, that is, they were on the side of the Allies who liberated Europe from the “brown plague.” But in their cruelty towards the local population, the Moroccans, according to some estimates, surpassed even the Germans.
First of all, the Moroccans raped the inhabitants of the territories they captured. Of course, first of all, women of all ages suffered - from little girls to old women, but boys, teenagers and men who dared to resist them were also subjected to violence. As a rule, gang rape ended with the murder of the victim.
In addition, the Moroccans could mock the victims by gouging out their eyes, cutting off their ears and fingers, since such “trophies” increased the status of the warrior according to Berber ideas.
However, an explanation can be found for this behavior: these people lived in their Atlas Mountains in Africa practically at the level of the tribal system, were illiterate, and, finding themselves in the theater of military operations of the 20th century, transferred their essentially medieval ideas to it.
Japanese
While the behavior of the Moroccan Gumiers is understandable, it is extremely difficult to find a reasonable interpretation for the actions of the Japanese.
There are many memories of how the Japanese abused prisoners of war, representatives of the civilian population of the occupied territories, as well as their own compatriots suspected of espionage.
One of the most popular punishments for spying was cutting off fingers, ears, or even feet. The amputation was performed without anesthesia. At the same time, careful care was taken to ensure that the person punished continuously felt pain during the procedure, but survived.
In the camps for prisoners of war of the Americans and the British, this type of execution for rebellion was practiced, such as burial alive. The convict was placed vertically in a hole and covered with a pile of stones or earth. The man suffocated and died slowly, in terrible pain.
The Japanese also used medieval execution by beheading. But if in the era of the samurai the head was cut off with one masterful blow, then in the 20th century there were not so many such masters of the blade. Inept executioners could strike the unfortunate man's neck many times before the head was separated from the neck. The suffering of the victim in this case is difficult to even imagine.
Another type of medieval execution that was used by the Japanese military was drowning in the waves. The convict is tied to a pole dug into the shore in the high tide zone. The waves slowly rose, the man choked and finally died painfully.
And finally, probably the most terrible method of execution, which came from antiquity - tearing apart with growing bamboo. As you know, this plant is the fastest growing in the world. It grows 10-15 centimeters per day. The man was chained to the ground, from which young bamboo shoots peeked out. Over the course of several days, the plants tore the sufferer's body apart. After the end of the war, it became known that during the Second World War the Japanese also used such a barbaric method of execution on prisoners of war.
What do you think was the most terrible thing during the Middle Ages? Lack of toothpaste, good soap or shampoo? The fact that medieval discos were held to the tedious music of mandolins? Or maybe the fact that medicine did not yet know vaccinations and antibiotics? Or endless wars? Yes, our ancestors didn't go to movie theaters or send emails to each other. But they were also inventors. And the worst thing they invented was instruments for torture, instruments with the help of which the system of Christian justice was created - the Inquisition. And for those who lived in the Middle Ages, Iron Maiden is not the name of a heavy metal band, but one of the most disgusting gadgets of that time.
Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden. Maid of Nuremberg
This is not “three girls under the window.” This is a huge sarcophagus in the form of an open, empty female figure, inside of which numerous blades and sharp spikes are reinforced. 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 person sentenced to execution was long and painful. The "Virgin" was first used in 1515. The condemned man died for three days.
Pear
This device was inserted into the openings of the body - it is clear that not into the mouth or ears - and opened so as to cause unimaginable pain to the victim, tearing these openings.
Copper Bull
This torture was developed in Greece, Athens. This was a bull shape made of metal (brass) and hollow inside, with a door on the side. The convict was placed inside the “bull”. The fire was lit and heated to the point where the brass turned yellow, eventually causing it to slowly brown. The bull was designed in such a way that when screaming and screaming from inside, you could hear the roar of a mad bull.
Torture by rats
Torture by rats was very popular in ancient China. However, we will look at the rat punishment technique developed by 16th century Dutch Revolution leader Diedrick Sonoy.
How it works?
- The stripped naked martyr is placed on a table and tied;
- Large, heavy cages containing hungry rats are placed on the prisoner's stomach and chest. The bottom of the cells is opened using a special valve;
- Hot coals are placed on top of the cages to stir up the rats;
- In an attempt to escape the heat of the hot coals, rats chew their way through the flesh of the victim.
Vigil or Cradle of Judas
The know-how belongs to Hippolyte Marsili. At one time, this instrument of torture was considered loyal - it did not break bones or tear ligaments. First, the sinner was lifted on a rope, and then sat on the Cradle, and the top of the triangle was inserted into the same holes as the Pear. It hurt to such an extent that the sinner lost consciousness. He was lifted, “pumped out” and put back on the Cradle. I don’t think that in moments of enlightenment the sinners thanked Hippolytus for his invention.
Trampling by elephants
For several centuries, this execution was practiced in India and Indochina. An elephant is very easy to train and teaching it to trample a guilty victim with its huge feet is a matter of just a few days.
How it works?
- The victim is tied to the floor;
- A trained elephant is brought into the hall to crush the martyr's head;
- Sometimes, before the “head test,” animals crush the victims’ arms and legs in order to amuse the audience.
Rack
This device is an oblong rectangle with a wooden frame. The hands were firmly fixed below and above. As the interrogation/torture proceeded, the executioner turned the lever, with each turn the person was stretched and hellish pain set in. Usually, upon completion of the torture, the person either simply died from pain shock, because that’s all his joints were pulled out.
Dead Man's Bed (modern China)
The Chinese Communist Party uses the “dead man’s bed” torture mainly on those prisoners who try to protest against illegal imprisonment through a hunger strike. In most cases, these are prisoners of conscience, imprisoned for their beliefs.
How it works?
- The arms and legs of a stripped 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, a person’s body is tied tightly to the bed with ropes so that he cannot move at all. A person remains in this position continuously for several days to weeks.
- In some prisons, such as Shenyang City No. 2 Prison and Jilin City Prison, police also place a hard object under the victim's back to intensify the suffering.
- It also happens that the bed is placed vertically and the person hangs for 3-4 days, stretched out by his limbs.
- Added to this torment is force-feeding, which is carried out using a tube inserted through the nose into the esophagus, into which liquid food is poured.
- This procedure is performed mainly by prisoners on the orders of the guards, and not by medical workers. They do this very rudely and unprofessionally, often causing serious damage to a person’s internal organs.
- 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.
Yoke (Modern China)
One of the medieval tortures used in modern Chinese prisons is the wearing of a wooden collar. It is placed on a prisoner, which is why he cannot walk or stand normally. The clamp is a board from 50 to 80 cm in length, from 30 to 50 cm in width and 10 – 15 cm in thickness. In the middle of the clamp there are two holes for the legs. The victim, who is wearing a collar, has difficulty moving, must crawl into bed and usually must sit or lie down, since the upright position causes pain and leads to 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 puts pressure on the legs and heels, causing pain, but its edge clings to the bed and prevents the person from returning to it. At night the prisoner is unable to turn around, and in winter the short blanket does not cover his legs. An even worse form of this torture is called “crawling with a wooden clamp.” The guards put a collar on the 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, his fingers, toenails and knees are bleeding heavily, while his back is covered in wounds from the blows.
Impalement
A terrible, savage execution that came from the East. The essence of this execution was that a person was laid on his stomach, one sat on him to prevent him from moving, the other held him by the neck. A stake was inserted into the person's anus, 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.
Chinese water torture
They sat a man in a very cold room, tied him so that he could not move his head, and in complete darkness cold water was very slowly dripped onto his forehead. After a few days the person froze or went crazy.
Spanish armchair
This instrument of torture was widely used by the executioners of the Spanish Inquisition and was a chair made of iron, on which the prisoner was seated, and his legs were placed in stocks attached to the legs of the chair. When he found himself in such a completely helpless position, a brazier was placed under his feet; with hot coals, so that the legs began to slowly fry, and in order to prolong the suffering of the poor fellow, the legs were poured with oil from time to time. Another version of the Spanish chair was often used, which was a metal throne to which the victim was tied and a fire was lit under the seat, roasting the buttocks. The famous poisoner La Voisin was tortured on such a chair during the famous Poisoning Case in France.
GRIDIRON (Grid for Torture by Fire)
Torture of Saint Lawrence on the gridiron.
This type of torture is often mentioned in the lives of saints - real and fictitious, but there is no evidence that the gridiron “survived” until the Middle Ages and had even a small circulation in Europe. It is usually described as an ordinary metal grate, 6 feet long and two and a half feet wide, mounted horizontally on legs to allow a fire to be built underneath. Sometimes the gridiron was made in the form of a rack in order to be able to resort to combined torture. Saint Lawrence was martyred on a similar grid. This torture was used very rarely. Firstly, it was quite easy to kill the person being interrogated, and secondly, there were a lot of simpler, but no less cruel tortures.
Pectoral
In ancient times, a pectoral was a female breast decoration in the form of a pair of carved gold or silver bowls, often sprinkled with precious stones. It was worn like a modern bra and secured with chains. In a mocking analogy with this decoration, the savage instrument of torture used by the Venetian Inquisition was named. In 1985, the pectoral was heated red-hot and, taking it with tongs, they put it on the tortured woman’s chest and held it until she confessed. If the accused persisted, the executioners heated up the pectoral again cooled by the living body and continued the interrogation. Very often, after this barbaric torture, charred, torn holes were left in place of the woman’s breasts.
tickle torture
This seemingly harmless effect was a terrible torture. With prolonged tickling, a person's nerve conduction increased so much that even the lightest touch initially caused twitching, laughter, and then turned into terrible pain. If such torture was continued for quite a long time, then after a while spasms of the respiratory muscles occurred and, in the end, the tortured person died from suffocation. In the simplest version of torture, the interrogated person was tickled in sensitive areas either simply with their hands, or with hair brushes or brushes. Stiff bird feathers were popular. Usually they tickled under the armpits, heels, nipples, inguinal folds, genitals, and women also under the breasts. In addition, torture was often carried out using animals that licked some tasty substance from the heels of the interrogated person. The goat was very often used, since its very hard tongue, adapted for eating grass, caused very strong irritation. There was also a type of tickling torture using a beetle, most common in India. With it, a small bug was placed on the head of a man's penis or on a woman's nipple and covered with half a nut shell. After some time, the tickling caused by the movement of insect legs on a living body became so unbearable that the interrogated person confessed to anything...
Crocodile
These tubular metal crocodile pliers were red-hot and used to tear the penis of the person being tortured. At first, with a few caressing movements (often made by women), or with a tight bandage, a persistent, hard erection was achieved and then the torture began
Tooth crusher
These serrated iron tongs were used to slowly crush the testicles of the interrogated person. Something similar was widely used in Stalinist and fascist prisons.
Creepy tradition
Actually, this is not torture, but an African ritual, but, in my opinion, it is very cruel. Girls aged 3-6 years old simply had their external genitalia scraped out without anesthesia. 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 ritual is done “for the benefit” of women, so that they will never be tempted to cheat on their husbands...
Bloody Eagle
Part of the image engraved on the Stora Hammers stone. The illustration shows a man lying on his stomach, with an executor standing over him, ripping open the man’s back with an unusual weapon. One of the most ancient tortures, during which the victim was tied face down and his back was opened, his ribs were broken off at the spine and spread apart like wings. Scandinavian legends claim that during such an execution, the wounds of the victim were sprinkled with salt.
Many historians claim that this torture was used by pagans against Christians, others are sure that spouses caught in treason were punished in this way, and still others claim that the bloody eagle is just a terrible legend.
Spanish water torture
In order to best carry out the procedure of this torture, the accused was placed on one of the types of racks or on a special large table with a rising middle part. After the victim's arms and legs were tied to the edges of the table, the executioner began work in one of several ways. One of these methods involved forcing the victim to swallow a large amount of water using a funnel, then hitting the distended and arched abdomen. Another form involved placing a cloth tube down the victim's throat through which water was slowly poured, causing the victim to swell and suffocate. If this was not enough, the tube was pulled out, causing internal damage, and then inserted again and the process repeated. Sometimes cold water torture was used. In this case, the accused lay naked on a table under a stream of ice water for hours. It is interesting to note that this type of torture was considered light, and the court accepted confessions obtained in this way as voluntary and given by the defendant without the use of torture. Most often, these tortures were used by the Spanish Inquisition in order to extract confessions from heretics and witches.
