The most terrible torture in the history of mankind.

Chinese bamboo torture

A notorious method of terrible Chinese execution throughout 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 a full meter in a day. Some historians believe that the deadly bamboo torture was used not only by the ancient Chinese, but also by the Japanese military during World War II.

How it works?

1) Sprouts of living bamboo are sharpened with a knife to form sharp “spears”;

2) The victim is suspended horizontally, with his back or stomach, over a bed of young pointed bamboo;

3) Bamboo quickly grows high, pierces the skin of the martyr and grows through him abdominal cavity, a person dies for a very long time and painfully.

2. Iron Maiden

Like torture with bamboo, the “iron maiden” is considered by many researchers to be a terrible legend. Perhaps these metal sarcophagi with sharp spikes inside only frightened the people under investigation, after which they confessed to anything. The "Iron Maiden" was invented at the end of the 18th century, i.e. already at the end of the Catholic Inquisition.

How it works?

1) The victim is stuffed into the sarcophagus and the door is closed;

2) The spikes driven into the inner walls of the “iron maiden” are quite short and do not pierce the victim, but only cause pain. The investigator, as a rule, receives a confession in a matter of minutes, which the arrested person only has to sign;

3) If the prisoner shows fortitude and continues to remain silent, long nails, knives and rapiers are pushed through special holes in the sarcophagus. The pain becomes simply unbearable;

4) The victim never admits to what he did, then she was locked in a sarcophagus for long time, where she died from loss of blood;

5) Some models of the “iron maiden” were provided with spikes at eye level in order to quickly poke them out.

3. Skafism

The name of this torture comes from the Greek “scaphium”, which means “trough”. Scaphism 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 who were partial to human flesh and blood.

How it works?

1) The prisoner is placed in a shallow trough and wrapped in chains.

2) He is force fed large quantities milk and honey, which causes the victim to have profuse diarrhea, which attracts insects.

3) The prisoner, having shit himself and smeared with honey, is allowed to float in a trough in a swamp, where there are many hungry creatures.

4) The insects immediately begin their meal, with the living flesh of the martyr as the main dish.

4. The Terrible Pear

“The pear is lying there - you can’t eat it,” it is said about the medieval European tool for “educating” blasphemers, liars, women who gave birth out of wedlock, and men gay. Depending on the crime, the torturer put a pear in the sinner’s mouth, anal hole or vagina.

How it works?

1) A tool consisting of pointed pear-shaped leaf-shaped segments is inserted into the client’s desired body hole;

2) The executioner little by little 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 revealed completely, the offender receives internal damage, incompatible with life and dies in terrible agony, if he has not already fallen into unconsciousness.

5. Copper Bull

The design of this death unit was developed by the ancient Greeks, or to be more precise, by the coppersmith Perillus, who sold his terrible bull to the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris, who simply loved torturing and killing people in unusual ways.

A living person was pushed inside the copper statue through a special door.

Phalaris first tested the unit on its creator - the greedy Perilla. Subsequently, Phalaris himself was roasted in a bull.

How it works?

1) The victim is closed in a hollow copper statue of a bull;

2) A fire is lit under the bull’s belly;

3) The victim is fried alive, like a ham in a frying pan;

4) The structure of the bull is such that the cries of the martyr come from the mouth of the statue, like a bull’s roar;

5) Jewelry and amulets were made from the bones of the executed, which were sold at bazaars and were in great demand..

6. 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?

1) The stripped naked martyr is placed 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 using a special valve;

3) Hot coals are placed on top of the cages to stir up the rats;

4) Trying to escape the heat of hot coals, rats gnaw their way through the flesh of the victim.

7. Cradle of Judas

The Judas Cradle was one of the most torturous torture machines in the arsenal of the Suprema - the Spanish Inquisition. Victims usually died from infection, as a result of the fact that the pointed 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 or tear ligaments.

How it works?

1) The victim, whose hands and feet are tied, is seated on the top of a pointed pyramid;

2) The top of the pyramid is thrust into the anus or vagina;

3) Using ropes, the victim is gradually lowered lower and lower;

4) The torture continues for several hours or even days until the victim dies from powerlessness and pain, or from blood loss due to rupture of soft tissues.

8. 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?

1. The victim is tied to the floor;

2. A trained elephant is brought into the hall to crush the martyr’s head;

3. Sometimes before the “head test,” animals crush the victims’ arms and legs in order to amuse the audience.

9. Rack

Probably the most famous and unrivaled death machine of its kind called the “rack”. It was first tested around 300 AD. on the Christian martyr Vincent of Zaragoza.

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

How it works?

1. This instrument of torture is a special bed with rollers at both ends, around which ropes are wound to hold the victim’s wrists and ankles. As the rollers rotated, the ropes pulled in opposite directions, stretching the body;

2. Ligaments in the victim’s arms and legs are stretched and torn, bones pop out of their 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's hands were tied behind his back and lifted by a rope tied to his hands. Sometimes a log or other weights were attached to his bound legs. At the same time, the arms of the person raised on the rack were turned back and often came out of their joints, so that the convict had to hang on his outstretched arms. They were on the rack from several minutes to an hour or more. This type of rack was most often used in Western Europe

4. In Russia, a suspect raised on the rack was beaten on the back with a whip and “put to the fire,” that is, burning brooms were passed over the body.

5. In some cases, the executioner broke the ribs of a man hanging on a rack with red-hot pincers.

10. Paraffin in the bladder

A savage form of torture, the exact use of which has not been established.

How it works?

1. Candle paraffin was rolled out by hand into a thin sausage, which urethra administered orally;

2. Paraffin slipped into bladder, where the deposition of solid salts and other nasty things began on it.

3. Soon the victim began to have kidney problems and died from acute renal failure. On average, death occurred within 3-4 days.

How was bamboo torture carried out in China? What kind of punishment is this? You will find answers to these and other questions in the article.

Many of us associate China with extraordinary wisdom, dragons, expensive silks, a unique tea ceremony, and, more recently, cheap products for every taste and color. But few people know that until the 20th century, special traditions of executions and torture operated in the Celestial Empire.

Bamboo torture

The term "inquisition" (from the Latin Inquisitio) means "inquiry, interrogation." It was widespread even before the appearance of medieval church institutions with this name in the legal field and meant clarifying the picture of the case through proceedings, usually through interrogations, often with the use of force. And only over time, the word “Inquisition” began to be understood as spiritual trials of anti-Christian heresies.

The torture of the Inquisition had hundreds of variations. Some medieval torture devices have survived to this day. But very often even museum exhibits were reconstructed according to descriptions in various sources. Their varieties are astonishing and terrifying. It turns out that not only medieval Europe was famous for its cruelty.

Torture with bamboo is a notorious method of terrible Chinese execution throughout the world. This is probably a legend, since to this day not a single documentary evidence has survived that this torture was practiced in real life.

Bamboo is considered one of the fastest growing plants on our planet. Some of its varieties are capable of growing a whole meter in a day. Many historians claim that lethal bamboo torture was used not only by the ancient Chinese, but also by Japanese soldiers during World War II.

How does it work?

How was bamboo torture carried out in China? The executioner performed the following actions:

1. I sharpened the sprouts of living bamboo with a knife so that I got sharp “spears”.
2. He hung the victim horizontally, with his stomach or back, over a bed of pointed young bamboo.
3. Then the bamboo quickly grew upward, pierced the martyr’s skin and grew through his abdominal cavity. As a result, the person died in terrible agony.

Research

Did bamboo torture really exist? Is it possible for an escape to pass through a human body? How long will it take? “Mythbusters” began researching the legendary torture with bamboo on the NLO TV channel. To get to the bottom of the truth, the leaders of the Heineman Jamie project made a substitute for the human body and sent it to a greenhouse. A synthetic torso made of leather with the required elasticity and density was placed over seven shoots that had just appeared above the surface of the earth.

Experts left the dummy for a couple of days and eagerly awaited the results. The latter, by the way, stunned the entire film crew. Amazingly, after just three days the torso split. The bamboo shoots pierced the semblance of flesh without any problem. And all because bamboo is able to survive in any conditions, because in the soil it has to break through stones, logs, roots, etc.

Sprouts from the ground rush to the surface with colossal force. Bamboo reproduces unusually - new stems emerge from the root system. Under the ground, the shoot is a very strong and sharp tip that instantly pierces any soil, even asphalt. And, as the test showed, the human body.

The hypothesis was completely confirmed. Bamboo can really be an instrument of torture. And it's scary. A photo of torture with bamboo, albeit in a schematic version, is presented in the article.

Qin Dynasty

IN different times Every state had a variety of tortures. In China they were especially sophisticated and cruel towards humans. Moreover, the victims of torture were not only convicts and criminals, but also innocent people who the authorities simply did not like.

The code of the Qin dynasty listed more than 4 thousand offenses that threatened punishment. Torture in ancient China was as follows:

• The guilty person was placed in a dark and cold room. He was tied so that he could not move a single member, not even his head. The entire time he was in the room, water dripped onto his head. If the punished person did not confess, then from such torture he either lost his mind or froze.
• A sheet of metal, studded with sharp needles, was rolled into a barrel shape with the spikes inward. One of the executioners held this “barrel” with his hands, and the other grabbed the criminal by the hair and dragged him through it. The needles tore into the flesh, while the torturer, who was next to a jug of salt water, slowly sprinkled it on the bloody, torn body.
• Torture in China in ancient times was terrible. One of them was called "death by 1000 cuts." Tiny but deep cuts were made to the offender using special knives. The victim died either from blood loss or from painful shock, because the damage was inflicted without stopping, one after another. At the end of this execution, as a rule, not a single intact patch of skin remained on the human body.
• What other tortures existed in China? It is known that in this country the lower and upper executions were used. As a result of the lower execution, a person was castrated or had his kneecaps cut out, as for the upper one, the criminal’s nose was cut off or a brand was put on his face.
• Robber a long period for a while they were fed undercooked rice porridge. As a result, the porridge swelled in the stomach and tore its walls. A painful death followed.
• Torture of women in ancient China was disgusting. So, if a lady was unfaithful to her husband, she was tied with her legs spread so that she could not move. The executioner poured milk into the vagina and threw a snake at the feet of the victim. Sensing the smell of milk, the snake crawled inside the woman. After some time, the offender died.
• If the accused did not confess for a long time, then two punishers spread his legs, and the third inserted them into his anus very sharp dagger.
• The criminal was tied up, laid on the ground and doused with molten lead. Mostly the back and shoulders.
• “Hanging embroidered balls.” The blacksmith made a small sword with 4 or 5 tiny hooks on the blade. He entered easily human body, but when the executioner pulled it out, the hooks clung to the flesh, pieces of meat scattered to the sides.
• Piercing nails was considered humane torture. The offender's fingernails and toenails were pierced with a bamboo stick. If he remained stubbornly silent, his fingers were pierced through.
• This was also torture for girls in China. The criminal was forced to sit on a metal triangle with her vagina. If she was silent, then she was forcibly imprisoned until the end. And in the end the pyramid tore her apart.
• Torture by rats was also very popular in ancient China. The executioner placed cages with hungry rats on the robber’s chest and stomach. He opened the bottom of the cages and scared the rodents with fire. The rats looked for a way out and gnawed at human flesh in the hope of escape.

When the Manchu Qin Dynasty was overthrown, the use of such torture during interrogation was prohibited in 1912, on March 2, by decree of the President of the Republic of China.

Torture "Ling-chi"

We continue to consider torture and execution in ancient China. “Ling-chi” is translated into Russian as “sea pike bite.” There was another name - “death by a thousand cuts.” This technique was mentioned above, but let’s look at it in more detail. It was used during the Qin Dynasty. Only authoritative officials convicted of corruption were executed in this way.

Every year there were 15-20 such criminals. The execution of "Ling-chi" was unimaginably painful. It consisted of gradually cutting off tiny parts from the body. For example, the executioner cut off one phalanx of a finger, cauterized the wound and moved on to the next one.

The court determined the number of pieces that needed to be cut off from the body. The most popular solution was to cut 24 pieces. The most notorious robbers were sentenced to three thousand cuttings.

In such cases, the person was given opium: he lost consciousness, but even through the veil drug intoxication the pain was palpable. Sometimes the ruler showed mercy and ordered the executioner to first kill the victim with one blow and only then torture the corpse. This execution technology was practiced for 900 years and was banned in 1905.

Refutation

Many people have probably heard stories of Chinese torture. Their list is huge. But most of these tortures never really existed, or rather, “their existence is not confirmed by authoritative evidence.”

This also applies to the history of torture in general. Very often, the authors of works on this topic rely on all sorts of stories and gossip, which in practice turn out to be either BDSM fantasies, or propaganda, or an intricate mixture of both.

Of course, there is no smoke without fire, and, say, the Inquisition of Spain was not the most pleasant institution. Nevertheless, the terrible tales about the Inquisition and the terrible and often simply physiologically impossible tortures allegedly used by it, as it turned out, were taken from propaganda booklets of Protestants, long-time opponents of Spain, the Inquisition and Catholicism.

Formation of a myth

At the end of the last century, Europeans attributed many types of torture incredibly cruel to the Chinese. In those days, China seemed to many a mysterious state inhabited strange people, with its own laws and orders. He has become a very suitable object for those who like to dream about BDSM themes.

The French especially distinguished themselves in this matter, in particular, very popular in late XIX century, shocking writer Mirbo Octave. In 1889 he wrote the novel The Garden of Torture, in which we're talking about as if about China. Any person even slightly familiar with the canons of this country will not be able to read this book without smiling.

Nevertheless, this flight of sadomasochistic fantasy (and other similar, although less well-known) shaped the myth of Chinese torture and largely influenced attitudes towards the Celestial Empire.

Ancient Chinese canons

Were the medieval Chinese humanists? Of course not. Probably, the Chinese punishers were inferior to their Japanese and German contemporaries, but they knew a lot about executions and torture. What exactly were the real Chinese tortures? It is known that China appeared when Tutankhamun ruled Egypt, and Assyria was the main military state of the Middle East. Where is that Pharaonic Egypt and that Assyria today? Not a trace remains, but China exists.

In the 7th century AD e. rules in China It was then that the legislation of the Celestial Empire was drawn up, which, with minor changes, existed almost until the end of the last century.

Ancient China was the kingdom of "zhou xing". This word is translated into Russian as “corporal punishment,” but more exact translation there would be “self-mutilation punishments.” Indeed, the canons of the ancient Celestial Empire are full of phrases: “For big reprisals, weapons and armor are used (meaning a campaign against rebels), for the next - axes and axes (tools death penalty), for medium retribution - saws and knives, for regular retribution - drills and chisels, for light retribution - whips and sticks."

The mentioned saws and knives were used to saw off arms and legs, and drills and chisels were used to remove kneecaps. However, this list is not complete. In the 1st millennium BC. e. unified legislation had not yet been formed, and every judge, every prince invented his own reprisals against prisoners and robbers. The most popular were:

• cutting off ears;
• removal of kneecaps;
• branding;
• cutting off the nose;
• sawing off the foot (first, one foot was taken away, and the second time the criminal was caught, the second one was taken away).

All these “penalties” are mentioned quite often in the texts of those times.

Castration

Castration was often used in China. It is known that both men and women were subjected to this punishment. With men everything is clear, but from the texts it is clear that the punishers also did something to the genitals of the ladies. Although from the surviving documentation the essence of the procedure is not clear. However, the researchers found that this unknown punishment was painful and forever made sexual intercourse either very painful or impossible for the criminal.

Castrated men were turned into guards or eunuchs, and women were made palace slaves. However, many people after such punishment died from blood poisoning. It is known that the outstanding Chinese historian Sima Qian was castrated. However, for him this punishment was a mercy, since it replaced the death penalty.

The death penalty

Today it seems that China and torture of women are incompatible concepts. But you already know that in ancient times this was not the case. There were also many types of capital punishment in this country. The guilty were crucified, boiled in cauldrons, cut in half, burned at the stake, torn apart by chariots. Often their ribs were broken.

In addition to beheading, burying alive in the ground was very popular. This is exactly how they dealt with prisoners, which is why today archaeologists find specific burial places of people who were buried alive (in crouched positions, with open mouths, often ten souls in one grave).

Five Types of Retribution

The judges wanted to make the punishment more severe, so they came up with an execution they called the “Implementation of the Five Types of Retribution.” In this case, the offender had to be “first branded, then his nose cut off, then chopped off.” left leg and the right one, beat him to death with sticks, and put his head on display for everyone to see in the market.”

For particularly serious offenses, the entire family of the robber was subject to destruction. It was necessary to kill not only the one who broke the law, but also his mother, father, wife, sons, concubines, sisters (with husbands), brothers (with wives).

However, during the Han Dynasty (2nd century BC - 2nd century AD), penalties were noticeably softened. In 167 BC. e. many self-mutilation punishments were abolished (some of them occasionally appeared in the canons until they disappeared completely in the 7th-8th centuries). To replace truncation kneecaps and their noses were sent to hard labor or beaten with bamboo sticks. The number of variations of the death penalty has also decreased.

Real changes occurred only in the 7th century, during the reign of the Tang dynasty. The rulers introduced a system that lasted almost fifteen hundred years.

Prisons

What was torture like in Chinese prisons? Prison is an unpleasant place, and this fully applies to ancient Chinese dungeons. These were adobe houses without windows, and one wall was a wooden lattice through which the jailers watched the prisoners. In those days in China, convicts were not kept in casemates - this pleasure was too expensive, since people needed to be fed and guarded. Medieval dungeons were identical to today's prisons - they housed either those sentenced to deportation and death penalty, or those under investigation.

The jailers made sure that the prisoners did not escape. The pads helped them with this. The most common type of this device was the kanga (Chinese: jia). Almost all prisoners were chained in this block. In the Qin era (1644-1911), this device was a rectangular board 1 x 1 m, in the center of which a round cutout was made. This board consisted of two sliding parts. The prisoner's neck was placed in it and then locked. The prisoner had to constantly carry around his neck and shoulders something like an extendable table without legs weighing 10-15 kg (weight and parameters depended on the severity of the crime).

Hand stocks and iron handcuffs were also used. They were not equipped with a lock; they were simply riveted tightly, forcing the prisoner to spend months with his hands cuffed behind his back.

There were also more “serious” types of shackles. The most terrible variation was the “bed” in which robbers prone to escape were placed. It was like a bed to which the offender was tied by the neck, legs, arms and waist. Tormented by lice and bedbugs, in complete immobility, the prisoner spent many weeks in his own excrement. He could only thank his neighbors if they kindly drove the rats away from him.

A special cart was used to transport villains over long distances. It was an ordinary box on wheels. The bandit was seated on his haunches in it, and his head was pushed through a hole made in the top lid of the box. This hole was identical to the kanga. As a result, the man was in the box, and his head was sticking out, pinched by the block. He couldn't eat without outside help, he had to defecate on himself.

Nuances

Since the Tang Dynasty (VII-X centuries), the law has recognized only three variations of permissible torture; any ingenuity and initiative of investigators was suppressed, especially if the prisoner died.

The “lingchi” execution officially found its way into Chinese canons in the 12th century, although it has been used since ancient times. So, at the end of the 3rd century BC. e. It was in this way that all the daughters of the ruler Qin Shi-huang were executed. The new rulers did not want the Qin clan to survive. They decided to get rid of their rivals in the most reliable way: the princes were killed immediately, and the princesses (there were more than 20 of them from different concubines) were thrown into prison. Afterwards, the girls were taken to the capital’s main square and executed there, “tied naked to poles and having their legs and arms cut off.”

By the way, European travelers often witnessed executions in China, and at the end of the last century, tourists even took a couple of photographs. In the Celestial Empire, until the 20th century, there were no clear ideas about the presumption of innocence and the parties to the prosecution. Therefore, confession during torture was considered proof of the truth, and not only defendants, but also witnesses were subjected to torture.

Asian Bamboo Torture

European stake torture

This article is intended for adults only! 18+

16 of the most terrible tortures in human history.

1. Chinese bamboo torture

A notorious method of terrible Chinese execution throughout 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 a full meter in a day. Some historians believe that the deadly bamboo torture was used not only by the ancient Chinese, but also by the Japanese military during World War II.

How it works?
1) Sprouts of living bamboo are sharpened with a knife to form sharp “spears”;
2) The victim is suspended horizontally, with his back or stomach, over a bed of young pointed bamboo;
3) Bamboo quickly grows high, pierces the skin of the martyr and grows through his abdominal cavity, the person dies for a very long time and painfully.

2. Iron Maiden

Like torture with bamboo, the “iron maiden” is considered by many researchers to be a terrible legend. Perhaps these metal sarcophagi with sharp spikes inside only frightened the people under investigation, after which they confessed to anything. The "Iron Maiden" was invented at the end of the 18th century, i.e. already at the end of the Catholic Inquisition.

How it works?
1) The victim is stuffed into the sarcophagus and the door is closed;
2) The spikes driven into the inner walls of the “iron maiden” are quite short and do not pierce the victim, but only cause pain. The investigator, as a rule, receives a confession in a matter of minutes, which the arrested person only has to sign;
3) If the prisoner shows fortitude and continues to remain silent, long nails, knives and rapiers are pushed through special holes in the sarcophagus. The pain becomes simply unbearable;
4) The victim never admits to what she had done, so she was locked in a sarcophagus for a long time, where she died from loss of blood;
5) Some models of the “iron maiden” were provided with spikes at eye level in order to quickly poke them out.

3. Skafism
The name of this torture comes from the Greek “scaphium”, which means “trough”. Scaphism 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 who were partial to human flesh and blood.

How it works?
1) The prisoner is placed in a shallow trough and wrapped in chains.
2) He is force-fed large quantities of milk and honey, which causes the victim to have profuse diarrhea, which attracts insects.
3) The prisoner, having shit himself and smeared with honey, is allowed to float in a trough in a swamp, where there are many hungry creatures.
4) The insects immediately begin their meal, with the living flesh of the martyr as the main course.

4. The Terrible Pear

“The pear is lying there - you can’t eat it,” it is said about the medieval European weapon for “educating” blasphemers, liars, women who gave birth out of wedlock, and gay men. Depending on the crime, the torturer thrust the pear into the sinner's mouth, anus or vagina.

How it works?
1) A tool consisting of pointed pear-shaped leaf-shaped segments is inserted into the client’s desired body hole;
2) The executioner little by little 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 completely opened, the offender receives internal injuries incompatible with life and dies in terrible agony, if he has not already fallen into unconsciousness.

5. Copper Bull

The design of this death unit was developed by the ancient Greeks, or, to be more precise, by the coppersmith Perillus, who sold his terrible bull to the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris, who simply loved to torture and kill people in unusual ways.
A living person was pushed inside the copper statue through a special door.
Phalaris first tested the unit on its creator, the greedy Perilla. Subsequently, Phalaris himself was roasted in a bull.

How it works?
1) The victim is closed in a hollow copper statue of a bull;
2) A fire is lit under the bull’s belly;
3) The victim is fried alive, like a ham in a frying pan;
4) The structure of the bull is such that the cries of the martyr come from the mouth of the statue, like a bull’s roar;
5) Jewelry and amulets were made from the bones of the executed, which were sold at bazaars and were in great demand..

6. 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?
1) The stripped naked martyr is placed 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 using a special valve;
3) Hot coals are placed on top of the cages to stir up the rats;
4) Trying to escape the heat of hot coals, rats gnaw their way through the flesh of the victim.

7. Cradle of Judas

The Judas Cradle was one of the most torturous torture machines in the arsenal of the Suprema - the Spanish Inquisition. Victims usually died from infection, as a result of the fact that the pointed 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 or tear ligaments.

How it works?
1) The victim, whose hands and feet are tied, is seated on the top of a pointed pyramid;
2) The top of the pyramid is thrust into the anus or vagina;
3) Using ropes, the victim is gradually lowered lower and lower;
4) The torture continues for several hours or even days until the victim dies from powerlessness and pain, or from blood loss due to rupture of soft tissues.

8. 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?
1. The victim is tied to the floor;
2. A trained elephant is brought into the hall to crush the martyr’s head;
3. Sometimes before the “head test,” animals crush the victims’ arms and legs in order to amuse the audience.

Probably the most famous and unrivaled death machine of its kind called the “rack”. It was first tested around 300 AD. on the Christian martyr Vincent of Zaragoza.
Anyone who survived the rack could no longer use their muscles and became a helpless vegetable.

How it works?
1. This instrument of torture is a special bed with rollers at both ends, around which ropes are wound to hold the victim’s wrists and ankles. As the rollers rotated, the ropes pulled in opposite directions, stretching the body;
2. Ligaments in the victim’s arms and legs are stretched and torn, bones pop out of their 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's hands were tied behind his back and lifted by a rope tied to his hands. Sometimes a log or other weights were attached to his bound legs. At the same time, the arms of the person raised on the rack were turned back and often came out of their joints, so that the convict had to hang on his outstretched arms. They were on the rack from several minutes to an hour or more. This type of rack was used most often in Western Europe
4. In Russia, a suspect raised on the rack was beaten on the back with a whip and “put to the fire,” that is, burning brooms were passed over the body.
5. In some cases, the executioner broke the ribs of a man hanging on a rack with red-hot pincers.

10. Paraffin in the bladder
A savage form of torture, the exact use of which has not been established.
How it works?
1. Candle paraffin was rolled by hand into a thin sausage, which was inserted through the urethra;
2. Paraffin slipped into the bladder, where solid salts and other nasty things began to settle on it.
3. Soon the victim began to have kidney problems and died from acute renal failure. On average, death occurred within 3-4 days.

11. Shiri (camel cap)
A monstrous fate awaited those whom the Ruanzhuans (a union of nomadic Turkic-speaking peoples) took into slavery. They destroyed the slave's memory terrible torture- putting a shiri on the victim’s head. Usually this fate befell young men captured in battle.

How it works?
1. First, the slaves' heads were shaved bald, and every hair was carefully scraped out at the root.
2. The executors slaughtered the camel and skinned its carcass, first of all, separating its heaviest, dense nuchal part.
3. Having divided the neck into pieces, they immediately pulled it in pairs over the shaved heads of the prisoners. These pieces stuck to the heads of the slaves like a plaster. This meant putting on the shiri.
4. After putting on the shiri, the neck of the doomed person was chained 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 screams, and they were thrown there in an open field, with their 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 torment caused by drying, shrinking rawhide camel skin on the head. Inexorably shrinking under the rays of the scorching sun, the width squeezed and squeezed the slave's shaved head 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 the rawhide; in most cases, finding no way out, the hair curled and went back into the scalp, causing even greater suffering. Within a day the man lost his mind. Only on the fifth day did the Ruanzhuans come to check whether any of the prisoners had survived. If at least one of the tortured people was found alive, it was considered that the goal had been achieved. .
7. Anyone who underwent such a procedure either died, unable to withstand the torture, or lost his memory for life, turned into a mankurt - a slave who does not remember his past.
8. The skin of one camel was enough for five or six widths.

12. Implantation of metals

A very strange means of torture and execution was used in the Middle Ages.
How it works?

1. A deep incision was made on a person’s legs, where a piece of metal (iron, lead, etc.) was placed, after which the wound was stitched up.
2. Over time, the metal oxidized, poisoning the body and causing terrible pain.
3. Most often, the poor people tore the skin in the place where the metal was sewn up and died from blood loss.

13. Dividing a person into two parts
This terrible execution originated in Thailand. The most hardened criminals were subjected to it - mostly murderers.

How it works?
1. The accused is placed in a robe woven from vines, and sharp objects prick him;
2. After this, his body is quickly cut into two parts, the upper half is immediately placed on a red-hot copper grate; This operation stops the bleeding and prolongs the life of most people.
A small addition: This torture is described in the book of the Marquis de Sade “Justine, or the successes of vice.” This is a small excerpt from a large piece of text where de Sade allegedly describes the torture of the peoples of the world. But why supposedly? According to many critics, the Marquis was very fond of lying. He had an extraordinary imagination and a couple of delusions, so this torture, like some others, could have been a figment of his imagination. But this field should not refer to Donatien Alphonse as Baron Munchausen. This torture, in my opinion, if it did not exist before, is quite realistic. If, of course, the person is pumped up with painkillers (opiates, alcohol, etc.) before this, so that he does not die before his body touches the bars.

14. Inflating with air through the anus

A terrible torture in which a person is pumped with air through anal passage. Most often, thieves were executed this way.

How it works?
1. The victim was tied hand and foot.
2. Then they took cotton and stuffed it into the poor man’s ears, nose and mouth.
3. Bellows were inserted into the anus, with the help of which they were pumped into a person great amount air, as a result of which it became similar to balloon.
3. After that, I plugged his anus with a piece of cotton.
4. Then they opened two veins above his eyebrows, of which under a huge
All the blood flowed out under pressure.
5. Sometimes tied up man They stood him naked on the roof of the palace and shot him with arrows until he died.
6. Until 1970, this method was often used in Jordanian prisons.

15. Polledro

Neapolitan executioners lovingly called this torture “polledro” - “foal” (polledro) and were proud that it was first used in their hometown. Although history has not preserved the name of its inventor, they said that he was an expert in horse breeding and came up with an unusual device to tame his horses.

Only a few decades later, lovers of making fun of people turned the horse breeder’s device into a real torture machine for people.

The machine was a wooden frame, similar to a ladder, the crossbars of which had very sharp angles, so that when a person was placed on them with his back, they cut into the body from the back of the head to the heels. The staircase ended with a huge wooden spoon, into which the head was placed, as if in a cap.

How it works?
1. Holes were drilled on both sides of the frame and in the “cap”, and ropes were threaded into each of them. The first of them was tightened on the forehead of the tortured, the last tied thumbs legs As a rule, there were thirteen ropes, but for those who were especially stubborn, the number was increased.
2. Using special devices, the ropes were pulled tighter and tighter - it seemed to the victims that, having crushed the muscles, they were digging into the bones.

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

The torture of the Inquisition had hundreds of varieties. Some medieval instruments of torture have survived to this day, but most often even museum exhibits have been restored according to descriptions. Their variations are amazing. However, it was not only medieval Europe that was famous for its cruelty.

Amateur. media has collected methods and instruments of torture both in Europe and around the world.

Chinese bamboo torture

A notorious method of terrible Chinese execution throughout 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 a full meter in a day. Some historians believe that the deadly bamboo torture was used not only by the ancient Chinese, but also by the Japanese military during World War II.

How it works?

1) Sprouts of living bamboo are sharpened with a knife to form sharp “spears”;

2) The victim is suspended horizontally, with his back or stomach, over a bed of young pointed bamboo;

3) Bamboo quickly grows high, pierces the skin of the martyr and grows through his abdominal cavity, the person dies for a very long time and painfully.

Iron Maiden

Like torture with bamboo, the “iron maiden” is considered by many researchers to be a terrible legend. Perhaps these metal sarcophagi with sharp spikes inside only frightened the people under investigation, after which they confessed to anything.

The “Iron Maiden” was invented at the end of the 18th century, i.e. already at the end of the Catholic Inquisition.

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 quite short and do not pierce the victim, but only cause pain. The investigator, as a rule, receives a confession in a matter of minutes, which the arrested person only has to sign;

3) If the prisoner shows fortitude and continues to remain silent, long nails, knives and rapiers are pushed through special holes in the sarcophagus. The pain becomes simply unbearable;

4) The victim never admits to what she had done, so she was locked in a sarcophagus for a long time, where she died from loss of blood;

5) Some Iron Maiden models had spikes at eye level to poke them out.

Skafism

The name of this torture comes from the Greek “scaphium”, which means “trough”. Scaphism 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 who were partial to human flesh and blood.

1) The prisoner is placed in a shallow trough and wrapped in chains.

2) He is force-fed large quantities of milk and honey, which causes the victim to have profuse diarrhea, which attracts insects.

3) The prisoner, having shit himself and smeared with honey, is allowed to float in a trough in a swamp, where there are many hungry creatures.

4) The insects immediately begin their meal, with the living flesh of the martyr as the main course.

Pear of suffering

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

1) A tool consisting of pointed pear-shaped leaf-shaped segments is inserted into the client’s desired body hole;

2) The executioner little by little turns the screw on the top of the pear, while the “leaf” segments bloom inside the martyr, causing hellish pain;

3) After the pear is completely opened, the offender receives internal injuries incompatible with life and dies in terrible agony, if he has 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 Perillus, who sold his terrible bull to the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris, who simply loved to torture and kill people in unusual ways.

A living person was pushed inside the copper statue through a special door.

1) The victim is closed in a hollow copper statue of a bull;

2) A fire is lit under the bull’s belly;

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 amulets were made from the bones of the executed, which were sold at bazaars and were in great demand.

Torture by rats

Torture by rats was very popular in ancient China. However, we will look at the rat punishment technique developed by the leader of the 15th century Dutch Revolution, Diedrik Sonoy.

1) The stripped naked martyr is placed 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 using a special valve;

3) Hot coals are placed on top of the cages to stir up the rats;

4) Trying to escape the heat of hot coals, rats gnaw their way through the flesh of the victim.

Cradle of Judas

The Judas Cradle was one of the most torturous torture machines in the arsenal of the Suprema - the Spanish Inquisition. Victims usually died from infection, as a result of the fact that the pointed 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 or tear ligaments.

1) The victim, whose hands and feet are tied, is seated on the top of a pointed pyramid;

2) The top of the pyramid is thrust into the anus or vagina;

3) Using ropes, the victim is gradually lowered lower and lower;

4) The torture continues for several hours or even days until the victim dies from powerlessness and pain, or from blood loss due to rupture of soft tissues.

Rack

Probably the most famous and unrivaled death machine of its kind called the “rack”. It was first tested around 300 AD. e. on the Christian martyr Vincent of Zaragoza.

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

1. This instrument of torture is a special bed with rollers at both ends, around which ropes are wound to hold the victim’s wrists and ankles. As the rollers rotated, the ropes pulled in opposite directions, stretching the body;

2. Ligaments in the victim’s arms and legs are stretched and torn, bones pop out of their 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's hands were tied behind his back and lifted by a rope tied to his hands. Sometimes a log or other weights were attached to his bound legs. At the same time, the arms of the person raised on the rack were turned back and often came out of their joints, so that the convict had to hang on his outstretched arms. They were on the rack from several minutes to an hour or more. This type of rack was used most often in Western Europe

4. In Russia, a suspect raised on the rack was beaten on the back with a whip and “put to the fire,” that is, burning brooms were passed over the body.

5. In some cases, the executioner broke the ribs of a man hanging on a rack with red-hot pincers.

Shiri (camel cap)

A monstrous fate awaited those whom the Ruanzhuans (a union of nomadic Turkic-speaking peoples) took into slavery. They destroyed the slave's memory with a terrible torture - putting a shiri on the victim's head. Usually this fate befell young men captured in battle.

1. First, the slaves' heads were shaved bald, and every hair was carefully scraped out at the root.

2. The executors slaughtered the camel and skinned its carcass, first of all, separating its heaviest, dense nuchal part.

3. Having divided it into pieces, it was immediately pulled in pairs over the shaved heads of the prisoners. These pieces stuck to the heads of the slaves like a plaster. This meant putting on the shiri.

4. After putting on the shiri, the neck of the doomed person was chained 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 screams, and they were thrown there in an open field, with their 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 torment caused by drying, shrinking rawhide camel skin on the head. Inexorably shrinking under the rays of the scorching sun, the width squeezed and squeezed the slave's shaved head 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 the rawhide; in most cases, finding no way out, the hair curled and went back into the scalp, causing even greater suffering. Within a day the man lost his mind. Only on the fifth day did the Ruanzhuans come to check whether any of the prisoners had survived. If at least one of the tortured people was found alive, it was considered that the goal had been achieved.

7. Anyone who underwent such a procedure either died, unable to withstand the torture, or lost his memory for life, turned into a mankurt - a slave who does not remember his past.

8. The skin of one camel was enough for five or six widths.

Spanish water torture

In order to the best way to carry out the procedure of this torture, the accused was placed on one of the types of racks or on a special big table with 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, using a funnel, to swallow a large number of water, then they hit the swollen and arched belly.

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 torture was used cold water. In this case, the accused lay naked on the table for hours under the spray. ice water. 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.

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)

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.

Bloody Eagle

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.

"Catherine's Wheel"

Before tying the victim to the wheel, his limbs were broken. During rotation, the legs and arms were completely broken off, bringing unbearable torment to the victim. Some died from painful shock, while others suffered for several days.

Spanish donkey

A wooden log in the shape of a triangle was fixed on “legs”. The naked victim was placed on top of a sharp angle that cut straight into the crotch. To make the torture more unbearable, weights were tied to the legs.

Spanish boot

This is a fastening on the leg with a metal plate, which, with each question and subsequent refusal to answer it, as required, was tightened more and more in order to break the bones of the person’s legs. To enhance the effect, sometimes an inquisitor was involved in the torture, who hit the fastening 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.

Quartering by horses

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