A similar mode of execution was used as late as the early 18th century in France; one such episode is graphically recounted in the opening chapter of Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish (1979). Sign up to our newsletter for exclusive updates and enhanced content, Sign up to get Al Bawaba's exclusive celeb scoops and entertainment news, Syrian Man Reveals Worst Torture Methods Used by the Regime, Serie A: AC Milan vs Tottenham predicted lineups, Rihanna didn't get paid for her Super Bowl show, Awadallah jailed for sedition goes on hunger strike. Reserved for crimes of an especially heinous nature, notably treason, mass murder, or the killing of close family members, lingchi was designed as a cruel method of causing incrementally unbearable agony for its victims. In the 2010s, several Mexican cartel gore videos were leaked to the Internet, depicting flaying used as an extremely graphic torture technique. A 1593 engraved illustration of vertical impalement; author unknown. 436 0 obj<>stream G*0 oAsvHkj]YK Ay$^i-:Gb&@SubuQ~ay@$": 1O4=z+088r"YWv;V?Ry6UR=r? Sometimes, the Assyrian army didnt stop at killing their enemies. empires.. Assyria was located in the northern part of Mesopotamia, which corresponds to most parts of modern-day Iraq as well as parts of Iran . %PDF-1.4 % Where do we find this stuff? A standing army is one made up of professional soldiers whose only job is to fight. 0000005655 00000 n [00aR/NU(=PpF For example, Neo-Assyrian kings used it to punish rebel leaders. Nevertheless, the ancient Roman Candles signify the first organized persecutions of Christians under the Romans. N')].uJr He was executed by pressing. (s.`Y fI2q-y6ZS?8,FYMe 8yj3O ,. It shows the decapitated heads of the enemy Ummite soldiers being carried away by vultures. Then the rest would be scattered about the country. The Assyrians were known for being very barbaric when it came to torturing slaves and prisoners of war. At best, an army could hope to break through a citys gates by rushing at it with a log, often while archers fired down on them from below. wn It is as gory and bloodcurdling a history as we know. Suspending the individual by a rope attached to the wrists, with weights added, if necessary, to increase the pain. When I did not, he hit me with a timing belt. More often than not, though, the surviving men would be put through the hells they used to psychologically terrify the world. Lingchi, also known as death by a thousand cuts, was a form of execution used in China from around 900 AD until it was banned in 1905. Involving the severing of the ribs from the spin using a sharp implement, the victims lungs are subsequently pulled through the space created and draped over their shoulders to create the illusion of wings. They brought us to the military base in the village of Dayr al-Shimal in western Hama, where they beat us with plastic tubes," he told Anadolu Agency. The ancient Assyrian were among the most ruthless of all ancient warriors. The Breast Ripper, also known as the Iron Spider, was an instrument of torture during the latter years of the Middle Ages. Entering Europe and becoming a popular punishment for collaboration during the Thirty Years War, Vlad III of Wallachias impalement of more than 20,000 individuals earned him his immortality as Dracula. The use of torture and mutilation as a fear tactic did not become a more common practice until the Assyrian Empire was built. Method of slow and painful execution in which skin is removed from the body, sfn error: no target: CITEREFRassam_Cylinder._The_British_Museum.636BC (, Htel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, Rassam Cylinder. The Assyrian soldiers were trained in siege warfare, battle tactics, and hand-to-hand . This form of execution became famous when Giles Corey, an American farmer charged with witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. Ejaz Khan Kesselring, The English Historical Review (September 2001), Judas Cradle: Torture Device, Medievalist.com, Crime and Punishment in England: An Introductory History, John Briggs, Palgrave Macmillan (1996), The Tudor Law of Treason, John Bellamy, Routledge & Kegan Paul (1979), Execution: A Guide to the Ultimate Penalty, Geoffrey Abbott, Summersdale Publishers (2005), Dispensing Justice: Responses to Crime, Baron David James George Hennessy Windlesham, Clarendon Press, 1987, The Instruments of Torture, Michael Kerrigan, Lyons Press (2001), The Spectacle of Suffering: Executions and the Evolution of Repression from a Preindustrial Metropolis to the European Experience, Pieter C. Spierenburg, Cambridge University Press (1984), Rituals of Retribution: Capital Punishment in Germany 1600-1987, Richard J. Evans, Oxford University Press (May 9, 1996), Torture and Democracy, Darius Rejali, Princeton University Press (2007), The Lives They Lived: The Prisoner, Jonathan Mahler, The New York Times (December 25, 2005), The A to Z of Punishment and Torture: From Amputations to Zero Tolerance, Irene Thompson, Book Guild Publishing (2008), The Walled-up Wife: A Casebook, Mircea Elliade and Alan Dundes, University of Wisconsin Press (1996), The Brief History Of The Brazen Bull, John DeVore, Nov 19, 2016. . He wrote, I hung the heads of the kings upon the shoulders of their nobles, and with singing and music I paraded.. Its territory covered approximately . Execution of Thomas Armstrong in 1684 (c. 1698). endstream endobj 435 0 obj<>>>/LastModified(D:20030926134002)/MarkInfo<>>> endobj 437 0 obj[438 0 R 439 0 R 440 0 R] endobj 438 0 obj<>>> endobj 439 0 obj<>>> endobj 440 0 obj<>>> endobj 441 0 obj<>/Font<>/XObject<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC]/ExtGState<>>>/StructParents 0>> endobj 442 0 obj<> endobj 443 0 obj[/ICCBased 449 0 R] endobj 444 0 obj<> endobj 445 0 obj<> endobj 446 0 obj<>stream The women had it even worse. Captured soldiers were supposedly tied above infant bamboo shoots, which, over the course of several days, would grow at a rapid pace and pierce the prisoners. They invented the battering ram, a device that would have seemed completely unstoppable in their time. This was the first country to make military service mandatory for every male citizen, no matter who he was. They described hearing and seeing ghosts talking to them, who would be the ghosts of people theyd killed in battle, says Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes. Instituted as the legal penalty for men convicted of high treason in 1352, although existing unofficially since the reign of Henry III, the condemned man would suffer a litany of successive violations, humiliations, and pains before his eventual death. The convicted would be taken to a public stage and tied on the floor. The rocks were to be used to build palaces and wonders for the kings, and the slaves couldnt stop for a moment. Differing from immurement by both method and intent, those subjected to premature burial are interred with the purpose of execution, and, in contrast to the entombing of persons within walls, the victims die far quicker when buried. Ironically, in a reversal of fortunes for the Babylonians, Darius I of Persia would later impale 3,000 of their own in vengeance. The king of Urartu, upon hearing the Assyrian army approach, stabbed himself in the chest rather than face them. These kind of artifacts are very common. The namesake for this torture was the Christian martyr, Saint Catherine. Wikimedia Commons. by As both accounts were written many years after the events detailed, their veracity cannot be fully ascertained. It is unclear whether keelhauling was a common practice during the ancient world. Flaying, also known as skinning, was a torture method which originated from 883-859 BC and documented in both carvings and official royal edicts. 10. Heating the bowls with charcoal, the rats would gnaw into the very bowels of the victim. The Assyrians were so brutal that their military campaigns even put themselves through hell. The act of inflicting physical or psychological pain upon an individual, torture has served both a human as well as a judicial function since our earliest emergence into recorded history. Exclusive: Syrian regime is being accused of implementing more than 72 torture methods, including crucifixion, rape, and eye-gouging. Assyrian national history, as it has been preserved for us in inscriptions and pictures, consists almost solely of military campaigns and battles. Then each of you will eat fruit from your own vine and fig tree and drink water from your own cistern. Those who did not, he warned, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine.. Life behind a citys walls when the Assyrian army drew close was terrifying. From Ashurnasirpal II:.mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, I have made a pillar facing the city gate, and have flayed all the rebel leaders; I have clad the pillar in the flayed skins. The victim would be laid down on his belly with his hands tied behind his back and his rectum would be slit up by a razor, after which a paste would be applied to stop the bleeding before a stake would be thrusted into his body. Originally used by the Spanish Inquisition and other Holy Orders of the Middle Ages as part of interrogations, including against legendary Italian author Niccol Machiavelli in 1513, the practice endured well into the Modern Age. Every Assyrian man, from the poorest to the richest, was required to serve in the army. Shakespeare referenced the practice in The Winters Tale, whilst the legendary fictitious hunter Allan Quartermain experiences a vision of the brutal technique. Thats exactly the experience of modern-day soldiers whove been involved in close hand-to-hand combat.. Rat torture was first documented in 17th century Europe during the Dutch Revolt, with the technique being used against captured prisoners. As with all human endeavors, we gradually perfected the art of torture over the centuries, refining the necessary tools to inflict the greatest possible pain upon our unfortunate victims. The early Assyrians were a warrior society. It was one of the ideas that made Assyria so strong. Since the conflict, questions have habitually been raised concerning whether bamboo is actually capable of inflicting the injuries claimed by survivors. Whilst flaying after death has been historically recorded, typically as a means of debasing the enemys honor and reserved for instances such as criminality, the predominant occurrences took place during life. Victory Stele of Eannatum, King of Lagash, Called the Vulture Steleearly dynastic period, c. 2450 bc. [citation needed]. The boot, or 'Spanish boot' as it was sometimes called, was like a rack for the legs which would be placed in tightly fitted iron or wooden boots. Although women were excluded from these practices and doctors were required to be present, the Inquisition nevertheless enjoyed near limitless authority to inflict suffering upon those entrusted to their custody. The victims had mainly their faces flayed off, while they were still alive. A dead animal may be flayed when preparing it to be used as human food, or for its hide or fur. Similarly, neck traps prevented the victim from adjusting the angle of their neck to a more comfortable position. He used rat torture, along with other methods, to punish his political enemies and sexually assault his prisoners. In at least one case, an Assyrian king made the women lift their skirts over their heads and march blindly after their captors. This was the fate of the rebellious Israelites of the Northern . Wikimedia Commons. Whilst small-scale flaying, although painful, is endurable, large-scale skinning inevitably leads to death. This method was allegedly used in the 20th century by Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet. 1p18i!J 8? and there were a lot of them. It was a widespread method which was implemented and documented in various accounts. If it pleases you, do what you will!. Several English writers during the 17th century recorded keelhauling on naval ships; however, there remains no formal note of these actions in the ships logs. In the medieval ages, torture was used to punish heretical behavior and sexual offenders. Another innovation attributed to the Spanish Inquisition, the Judas Cradle, also known as the Judas Chair or Guided Cradle, was a torture device dating from the 16th century. His writing also appears on a number of other sites, including The Onion's StarWipe and Cracked.com. The Ancient Greeks used to punish people by cooking them inside a huge bronze bull. This is often referred to as flaying alive. While some claimed that it was a fast procedure which lasted from 15 to 20 minutes. Scaphism, also known as the boats, is a disputed method of Persian torture and execution. The Zhengde Emperor flayed six rebels,[9] and Zhang Xianzhong also flayed many people. The victims bones would be crushed and would sometimes burst through the skin. December 23, 2019, 10:09 am, by Wikimedia Commons. Maria The article "Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death" by Erika Bleibtreu gives an insight into the ways of the Assyrian military campaigns and battles. They were known for ruthless battle tactics and Gradually declining, by 1813 the practice started to be outlawed, with the last known execution by the wheel known to have occurred taking place in Prussia in 1841. It involved trapping the naked victim within two, narrow boats joined together with his head, hands, and feet protruding. Attracting bugs and vermin, whilst also inducing diarrhea to lure additional parasites, the victim would be gradually consumed by the animals as they fed upon them. In the past, rulers also included these extra elements of punishment to turn executions into spectacles. Although disputed for historical veracity, Plutarchs account has nonetheless proved influential. CONTENTS. The blood eagle - a ritualized method of torture and execution allegedly practiced by the Norse Vikings - opened up the ribs of the victim to craft their lungs into wings. I flayed many right through my land and draped their skins over the walls, he boasts in one. The strappado is so damaging that it cannot last for more than an hour without reprieve or risk of killing the subject. This is often referred to as flaying alive. Adriana John Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death. Dermatologist Ernst G. Jung notes that the typical causes of death due to flaying are shock, critical loss of blood or other body fluids, hypothermia, or infections, and that the actual death is estimated to occur from a few hours up to a few days after the flaying. Commonly resulting in the dislocation of the arms and shoulders, the longer-term effects of the method are less visible, causing lifelong nerve, ligament, and tendon damage leading to potential paralysis. The executioner would then use a large wooden spiked wheel to mutilate the convicts body, starting from his legs. The practice of flaying was popularized under the Neo-Assyrian Empire during the 9th century BCE, with carvings dating to the reign of Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BCE) depicting the gruesome details. It was believed that Lingchi was a punishment that the accused would have to carry even in the afterlife, where he would not be whole even after death. . HBO. Immurement, derived from the later im in and murus wall, literally comprises the entombing of an individual inside a wall or enclosed space without means of exit. And the lungs would be ripped out and spread over the ribs, making them look like wings. The city and its houses, from its foundations to its top, I destroyed, I devastated, I burned with fire, Seenacherib declared. Both named victims of the blood eagle Halfdan Long-Leg and lla of Northumbria were of royal blood, lending credence to speculation the ritual was reserved for persons of special importance. Tortured by the Syrian Bashar al-Assad regime in prison for seven years, Muhlis al-Drubi cannot forget the horrors he experienced, including having boiling water poured over him and reverse hanging. In the first year, they would build roads, bridges, and great projects to build up their strength and the strength of the empire. Executions have often served as a kind of revenge, a way of inflicting pain and mental torture on the convict. The Assyrian Empire originally began as a small city-state under the Akkadian Empire, which dominated Mesopotamia from 2334 - 2154 BCE. And, Aztecs of Mexico flayed victims as part of their human sacrifice rituals, and many more. The ribs are then detached from the backbone. Middle Ages Torture, devices, techniques and facts. The Babylonian destruction of their capital city Nineveh in 612 B.C. When I said I was from Hama, he cursed my mother. I let the leaders of the conquered cities be flayed, and clad the city walls with their skins. Refresh the page, check Medium 's site status, or. The most recent confirmed case occurred in New Jersey in 2010, when David Wax threatened a kidnap victim with rat torture. In some instances, mercy might be granted allowing for a swifter death, with the wheelset on fire or the condemned beheaded. There were no accurate details of how this method of execution was carried out. In September 1611, Dionysios the Philosopher (or. 0000001500 00000 n (e.g. 0000000689 00000 n Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. Assyrian torture method. The men worked in a three-year cycle. In the case of very crime for which there is penalty of the cutting-off of ear or nose, the law said, as it is written it shall be carried out.. Keelhauling, which dates back in 800 B.C. The Assyrians were known for being very barbaric when it came to torturing slaves and prisoners of war. But some argue that there was a degree of dismemberment, and there were times when the subsequent cuts were carried out after the victims death as a form of public humiliation. Exported by Europeans during the Age of Exploration, this method of torture is documented as occurring as far away as French-controlled Louisiana and in British-controlled India during the 18th century. Wikimedia Commons. The Rassam cylinder in the British Museum describes this: Their corpses they hung on stakes, they took off their skins and covered the city wall with them.[3]. Through the midst of that city I dug canals, I flooded its site with water, and the very foundations thereof I destroyed. Here are our sources: Japanese Torture Techniques, BBC (August 8, 2005), The Rise of the Dutch Republic, John Lothrop Motley, Bickers & Son (1883), The Pictorial History of England, George Lillie Craik and Charles McFarlane, Nabu Press (2010), Medieval Punishments: An Illustrated History of Torture, William Andrews, Skyhorse Publishing (2013), The Big Book of Pain: Torture & Punishment Through History, Mark P. Donnelly and Daniel Diehl, History Press Limited (2011), Amazing True Stories of Execution Blunders: Ghastly Blunders on the Scaffold, Geoffrey Abbott, Summersdale Publishing (2006), A Draft of the 1531 Acte for Poysoning', K.J. If a man was caught with another man, the law said, they shall turn him into a eunuch. Adultery was punishable by death. When the Assyrian king Seenacherib invaded Babylon, he wiped them off the map. Designed to deter witnesses from repeated the offense of the condemned, crucifixions were deliberately orchestrated events. In some accounts, there were cuts that numbered to 100 (Yuan Dynasty) and some were over 3,000 (Ming Dynasty). Keelhauling was an official punishment in the Dutch Navy, although only rarely enforced due to its harsh nature. . Assyrian art shows a parade of their slaves chained to large stones, being forced to drag massive rocks like mules. The British Museum. If it pleases you, spare! Flaying, also known as skinning, was a torture method which originated from 883-859 BC and documented in both carvings and official royal edicts. Their skin was attached to three doors as a warning against robbers of church and state. As a result, the mechanism was specifically designed to mutilate and destroy the most visible feminine attribute in retribution for the alleged unwomanly crimes: the breasts. The method can be traced all the way back to 911 BC, where it was practiced by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. All of Assyria was subject to their resettlement policy, which uprooted whole families and moved them across the country. The origins of the torture date to as early as ancient Babylon, with the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1772 BCE) detailing the punishment of impalement for women convicted of murdering her husband. A Judas Cradle, on display at the Museum of Torture in Freiburg, Germany. & 636BC, "Hypatia and pagan philosophical culture in the later fourth century", 1575 Painting: The Flaying of Marsyas, by Titian, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flaying&oldid=1142268127, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2017, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2016, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Vasak Mamikonyan, commander-in-chief of the Armenian army during the reign of, In 1314, the brothers Aunay, who were lovers of the daughters-in-law of king. The passage of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1791, prohibiting cruel and unusual punishments, was a direct response to this wartime practice and an attempt to prevent any further applications in the fledgling nation. He was known for his harsh punishments upon his enemies, especially those who had betrayed his family and took advantage of the misfortunes of Wallachia. This nasty torture method uses rats to torment the victim by forcing the rodents to gnaw their way into the humans flesh. In 1323, the Mexica tribe asked for Yaocihuatl, daughter of Achicometl, ruler of Culhuacan in marriage. Hypothesized to originate from the Kingdom of the Franks, by the time of the Holy Roman Empire it formed a staple of the legal system. Assyria made sure of it. This is more commonly called skinning. Wikimedia Commons. The Assyrian empire dominated Mesopotamia and all of the Near East for the first half of the first millennium B.C.E., led by a series of highly ambitious and aggressive warrior kings. Death often came slowly to those subjected to the practice, typically succumbing after several days to exhaustion or heart failure, whereafter their body would be left to rot as an example. 0000001458 00000 n A wooden board would be placed on the victims chest and abdomen and heavy stones or iron weights would be gradually placed on top of the board, slowly suffocating the victim. The result was one of the strongest armies in the world. 0000001680 00000 n Sometimes, they got creative. Overhead, the men inside the engine were protected by wooden plates covered in damp animal skins that put out the flaming arrows the defenders fired from above. All he left behind was a message, boasting of how far hed gone to decimate them. <<7a948a1f817a16499a21d19a53bed43a>]>> Their torturers would continuously hurl verbal abuse at the prisoners, al-Drubi recounted. They poured boiling water over us, burned us with cigarette butts.". Continuing in usage throughout Medieval Europe, most commonly as part of the execution of traitors, flaying became so popular in Imperial China that the Hongwu Emperor ordered the mass flaying of 5,000 women in 1396. A similar variant of the implement, the Iron Spider, was a less portable alternative. Medium.com, Vestal Virgins: Chaste keepers of the flame, Melissa Dowling, Biblical Archaeological Society (2001), Rethinking Nero, BYROBERT DRAPER. They pioneered the use of terror as a weaponand they made the lives of their enemies a living horror story. Flaying was both torture and execution, the method was slow and painful like most execution methods. Wikimedia Commons. 0000001622 00000 n [citation needed]. The sailor would be tied to a rope that encircled the underside of the ship, whereupon, being thrown overboard, they would be dragged underneath the ship and along the keel to emerge on the other side. The bandit Ishikawa Goemon, being boiled to death for the attempted assassination of Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 16th-century Japan (c. mid-19th century). A still from S2E4 of Game of Thrones, depicting the historical rat torture. The judges of ancient Babylon were particularly enthusiastic. The period from the ninth century to the end of the seventh century B.C. The "strappado", also known as "corda", is a longstanding, simple, but nonetheless effective method of torture involving tying a victim's hands behind their back. My skin peeled off. %%EOF Designed during the reign of the tyrant Phalaris (r. 570-554 BCE) by Perillos of Athens, the bull, as recorded by Diodorus Siculus, was supposedly made from bronze but hollowed out and with a door on one side. Pressing as a form of punishment dates back to the 13th century in England. Facing blame for both causing the blaze and providing inadequate response to the inferno, which caused widespread damage to 10 of Romes 14 districts, Emperor Nero blamed the fiery outbreak on religious minorities including early Christians. Mark Oliver is a regular contributor to Listverse. But it was supposedly shattered due to her divinity. The method was done by breaking the criminals bones and bludgeoning them to death. Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive updates and enhanced content, A member of the Syrian Democratic Forces guards IS suspects in north-east Syria. As a form of punishment, crucifixion exists still today, notably in Saudi Arabia and Iran, where the most recent known occurrences of crucifixion occurred as recently as the early 2000s. The method was reborn during the modern age across Latin America, with its use recorded under the military dictatorships of Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. The Spanish Inquisition, lasting from 1478 until 1834, existed for a sufficiently long period of time to incrementally perfect the art of torture. 10 Times Britain Was Successfully Invaded, Top 10 Must-See Recent Genre-Defying Horrors, The Listverse Compendium Of 113 Halloween Horrors, 10 Men Suspected Of Being Jack The Ripper (Who, 10 Ways Being Attractive Can Work Against You, 10 People Who Willingly Returned To Being Prisoners, Bizarre Police Vehicles That Are Actually Being Used, 8 Dark Facts About Being Single, And Why You Really, 10 Controversial Toys You Might Already Have in Your Home, Ten Absolutely Vicious Fights over Inherited Fortunes, 10 Female Film Pioneers Who Shaped the Movies, Ten True Tales from Americas Toughest Prison, 10 Times Members of Secretive Societies and Organizations Spilled the Beans, 10 Common Idioms with Unexpectedly Dark Origins, 10 North American Animals with Misplaced Reputations, eat their own excrement and drink their own urine, necklaces with their kings heads on them, 10 Forgotten Battles That Changed World History, 10 Stages in the History of Drinking Parties, 10 Letters From Everyday People On The Other Side Of History, 10 Eccentric Ways To Obtain A Medal Of Honor.