It’s time to crack open the torture chamber once again and look at ten
more of the worst punishments ever designed to be worse than death.
And we’ll start with one that wasn’t designed to kill at all - at least not for a while.
#10. Branding
There are few greater tools in criminal justice than shame. A clever judge or two
may have sentenced a drunk driver to stand on a street corner with a sign professing his crime.
And who could forget Cersei Lannister being marched around in her infamous shame parade?
(Author’s Note: I didn’t link any footage because she’s nude in it,
but it may be worth recreating that scene in animation since it’s so memorable)
But what if someone wanted the shame to go on forever? What if a particularly
sadistic judge or ruler wanted to make sure that wherever the convicted went,
people would know they were a traitor, or thief, or heretic - and treat them accordingly?
That’s where a common farm tool comes in handy.
Branding has a simple use in most farms - to ensure everyone knows who cattle belongs
to if they get loose. A few seconds with a hot iron, some loud mooing,
and the farmer’s property is secure. But it wasn’t limited to that. During the time of slavery,
sadistic owners would do the same thing for the same reason - to make sure everyone knew
a slave was their property. And in the past, criminals would be given a brand
to make sure everyone knew their guilt - and often the specifics of their crime.
In the 16th century, those deemed heretics against the Catholic Church were branded with a cross.
And in the new world, the torture got more specific.
Branding was commonly used in the early North American colonies to mark those
deemed trouble - and you would literally get a scarlet letter. People convicted of adultery
got the letter A, burglars and blasphemers got the letter B - which might lead to some
explanation - and those guilty of public drunkenness got the letter D - which seems
rather harsh for a night of partying. With no way to hide the scar, for the rest of your life
you would be marked as a criminal and treated accordingly - which could mean being excluded
from polite society. Or in some cases, it might mean being sought out for a wild night out.
It’s not the only torture you were supposed to survive - and in Europe, they got creative.
#9. The Spanish Boot
During the middle ages, torture was disturbingly common as a way to extract information - but
many of the tortures stood the risk of ending the interrogation way too early and sending the truth
to the grave with the victim. So how do you keep a victim alive long enough to break them down for
information? You torture an area of the body the person can live without - but would really like to
keep. A popular choice? The legs, which can take a lot of punishment for a long time. And so, some
particularly sadistic Spanish torture designers came up with a shoe that is never in fashion.
Even the most daring fashionista will want to avoid wearing the Spanish Boot.
But the Spanish didn’t come up with the first prototype. That honor went to the Scots,
who designed it out of rawhide. You soak the garment, wrap it around the victim’s foot, and
then heat it over a fire - causing the rawhide to drastically contract and crush the victim’s foot,
causing dislocated bones. This was good for inducing pain - but not causing serious damage.
The British improved in the model with wooden boards, but the Spanish designed a version out
of Iron - with the ability not just to hurt the victim, but to crush their feet beyond repair.
And it turned out that was a very effective way to get information.
First, the victim’s lower leg and foot was strapped into the iron boot. Then,
wedges were placed in between the casing and the flesh - and hammered in brutally.
With each wedge between the hard iron and the soft flesh, more damage was done to the victim’s
leg and they would become very willing to tell the interrogators whatever they wanted to know.
Of course, the torture wasn’t necessarily over then either. Torturers would like to
force the victims to walk in the boots, or pour hot liquid into the casing to increase the pain.
The torture was survivable - but in the days it was most commonly used, those who suffered it for
an extended period would often die of infection or be permanently disabled from the crushed bones.
This next one was probably one of the rarest execution methods of all time - fortunately.
#8. The Brazen Bull
The time was ancient Greece, and the city of Akragas in what’s now Sicily was ruled by a
man named Phalaris. A tyrant known for his love of creative execution methods and showing off
his power, he wanted a new star attraction. One of his subjects, Perilaus, took up the task and
produced a truly sadistic final act for the unfortunate victim - in the form of a giant
metal bull. But this was no ordinary statue - the bronze figurine would serve as a cage,
with a door in one side. The condemned would be locked inside, a fire would be lit, and they would
be burned alive for the whole court to watch. But this wasn’t just a standard burning - legend says
that the bull had an acoustic device inside that would make the screams sound like a bull’s cry.
It lived up to the demands of the tyrant - but be careful what you wish for.
The tyrant Phalaris was impressed - so impressed, in fact, that he wanted to see it demonstrated
right away. But rather than find a petty criminal to execute like he normally did,
Phalaris ordered Perilaus placed inside himself and lit the fire! Sure enough,
Perilaus began screaming, and Phalaris was satisfied that the system worked,
and had his new favorite designer taken out, still alive, and given a great reward. Wait, no,
that would make sense. Instead, he had the guy who just built him his new favorite device
thrown off the top of a hill to his death. Not the best retirement plan.
And the bull got quite a workout over his reign.
Phalaris was big on showmanship, and the device delivered. According to reports of the time,
it spewed out impressive plumes of smoke as the condemned burned. The bones that were left were
reportedly made into jewelry by the mad king - like a normal person would do. It became
his favorite form of entertainment - until he was overthrown and became the bull’s final resident.
No prototype of the bull has ever been found, leading some historians to believe it to be a
propaganda tale made up by his enemies - but the accounts are so descriptive and graphic
that others say it’s entirely believable for a mad king to create such a torture.
It was fast and brutal - but to the east, some torturers preferred it slow.
#7. Lingchi
A knife is one of the most common methods to execute someone,
and it can be as simple as a fast cut to the throat. Brutal and efficient - but
efficient was not what the executioners in China around a thousand years ago had in mind.
For those guilty of especially heinous crimes, such as treason, a punishment known as the death
of one thousand cuts awaited them - and that wasn’t an exaggeration. For those punished in
this way, the goal would be to keep them alive indefinitely, in agonizing pain, as the torturer
removed parts of them with a knife - and this punishment had another horrible element to it.
Because it wasn’t just a punishment for the body - it was a punishment for the soul.
According to Confucian principles, cutting the body or altering it was a sin against the
principles of respect for one’s parents - after all, they gave you this body! So by altering the
body in this manner, the executioner would keep the condemned from being whole in the afterlife.
And this was usually a public affair - the condemned would be tied to a wooden frame
in public, and the executioner would go to work. They would cut away flesh from the body, usually
from non-critical areas like the legs at first. The victim would be left to linger, often with
onlookers jeering and throwing things at them. And often, the victim would be left begging for death.
So what brought an end to this torture?
How long it went on depended on how bad the crime was - and how sadistic the executioner was.
Some would rather quickly take pity on the convict and cut their throat after only a day of torture,
while others could keep their victims alive for weeks. And as usual - hello, madam guillotine - an
execution weapon invented for the worst of the worst soon spiraled out of control. It was
intended for treason - but soon Emperors started using it against anyone they wanted to make an
example out of. Soon even the family members of their political enemies could be subjugated to
this torture. People started getting horrified, and eventually the practice was outlawed - but
not before it became one of the most iconic and disturbing visuals out of Imperial China.
It wasn’t the only horrible punishment that took it slow.
#6. Death By Boiling
Ah, soup. Is there anything that smells better than a meat broth bubbling away on the stove?
What’s cooking? Oh my god! That’s right, back in the middle ages, they were making human soup
regularly. Not for consumption, but for punishment. It all started back in England,
which introduced the penalty of death by boiling as a punishment for murder by poisoning. Why such
a cruel punishment for one specific method of murder? Because that was the preferred method of
assassinating kings at the time - and King Henry VIII wanted to make sure no one got any ideas.
And naturally, once someone got the bright idea for a new torture method, it started spreading.
And that meant horrible things for anyone convicted.
It was one of the simplest execution methods around - all you needed was a large cauldron,
a bunch of rope to keep the condemned from getting free,
and a liquid. Water was the most common, but oil, tar, or tallow burned hotter and faster - and
created a more dramatic show. The restrained convict would be placed in the cauldron,
the liquid would be poured in, and the flame underneath would be lit as the water slowly
started boiling. And this could take a while - and the convict wouldn’t die immediately.
Remember what they say about frogs and boiling pots?
If the bath was water, it would start just like a sauna. If it was a stickier substance,
it would get a lot more unpleasant, a lot faster. But one way or another,
eventually the liquid would get so hot that it would start burning the skin of the condemned,
putting them in agonizing pain. Breathing in the boiling steam would start to scald their lungs,
and their body would dehydrate quickly. What would eventually kill them? Probably the shock from the
damage done to their body, which would make them pass out and drown in the horrible stew. One way
or another, it was a gruesome show that likely put the spectators off soup for a while. We hope.
One horrible punishment lasted the test of time - but wound up with a nightmarish legacy.
#5. The Gas Chamber
How to execute people has always been a tricky question. Beheading? So messy! Hanging? There’s
always a chance of failure. Firing squad? You need to get people with good aim. And as technology
marched on, some people thought - couldn’t we find a clean and foolproof way to do the nasty need?
It started in 1803, when an infamous French military commander executed large groups of
Haitian prisoners of war by filling the cargo holds where they were being
held with sulfur dioxide - poisoning and suffocating them within minutes. The use
of poison gas as an execution method had been invented - and it would only grow from here.
But is it truly an easier execution method?
Not for the condemned. While it is cleaner and has the highest rate of
success of any execution method, for the person in the chamber,
it’s horrible. In single-person executions, the condemned is strapped down to a chair in the
room as poison gas - usually hydrogen cyanide - is pumped into the room.
The condemned can see the gas as it’s piped in, and is usually told to breathe it in as
quickly as possible - because they’ll fall unconscious faster. If they don’t,
they’re likely to have seizures and loss of bodily function as the gas wreaks havoc on their body,
and it can take several minutes before they finally die. The convulsions can be severe,
with one murderer beating his head so hard against a metal bar that it broke the chair.
So why isn’t this system used more?
The gas chamber has mostly fallen out of favor as an execution method due to how expensive it is,
as well as the risk of the toxic gas leaking and poisoning the people around
the chamber. It’s been replaced by another poison method - the lethal injection,
which is usually faster and less painful. But the main reason few people want to see the gas chamber
make a comeback is because of its association with Nazi Germany - where the tyrants used it to create
mass execution chambers targeting Jews, Roma, and others deemed inferior or enemies of the
Nazi regime. Much like the guillotine, once an execution method is used in mass murderer,
most people overseeing executions would rather stay away from it.
Now, let’s head to the high seas - because who is better
at coming up with evil punishments than pirates?
#4. Marooning
Sometimes the worst thing you can do to someone is to leave them to their own devices. Say a pirate
has been breaking the rules of the sea. Maybe he was caught skimming off the top of the treasure,
or he had a little too much grog and punched the captain. Arr, he’s in for a bad time.
After locking him in the brig, the captain eventually takes him out as the ship hits land,
leads him off the ship - to a desert island, where he leaves him there to fend for himself.
He’s just been marooned - and this punishment often amounted to an
extended and painful death sentence, depending on where he’s been stranded.
And more thought was often put into this than expected.
The island was often little more than a slip of land bobbing in the water, with nowhere to
get shade, nowhere to get food, and no fresh water in sight. The sun beats down endlessly, the water
will just make you more thirsty, and there is little hope of rescue. The captain would often
give the mutinous pirate some items - a water jug, some food, and a loaded pistol. What that pistol
would be used for was entirely up to the pirate. The situation wasn’t entirely hopeless - another
ship could come by - but in most cases the marooned pirate would last only days at most.
Of course, this wasn’t always the case.
Sometimes, the pirates would drop the exiled sailor onto a larger island - one with shelter,
inland springs, coconuts, and animals. This often came down to the luck of the
draw - whichever island the ship came upon first. In this case, a determined
marooned pirate could carve out a hard but sustainable life for themselves - hunting,
foraging, and building themselves a shelter. Some could last years there, until another ship came
upon the island - maybe searching for treasure or goods, or maybe dropping off their own mutineer.
And if any other ship picked that survivor up, they would likely have a very determined
new recruit - with a specific pirate captain he would love to declare war on.
Which is why many pirate captains did NOT take that chance.
#3. Walking the Plank
It’s probably the most iconic image in media of pirates - someone has crossed
the captain. Maybe it was a mutineer, or a pirate who failed his mission. Maybe the
pirates captured a notorious enemy of theirs. One way or another, it’s time to walk the plank!
As execution methods go, this one is as simple as it comes - the condemned is bound and forced
to walk on a wooden plank outside of the ship. Why would anyone actually take this long walk?
Because on the other side, the captain is usually brandishing a sword! There’s
nowhere to go except to take that long walk off a short plank - and into the water below.
So, should all pirates just learn to swim?
Well, it’s not that simple, and walking the plank was usually a much more direct form of execution
than marooning. For one thing, the captive’s arms are bound to keep them from fighting back - and
also to keep them from swimming. If they do manage to get their arms loose and not drown immediately,
they’re still in turbulent ocean water - quite possibly surrounded by sharks
and other predatory animals. Then there’s the risk of the ship getting moving - and running
right over them. If all this goes right and the plank-walker survives, they’re still stranded
in the middle of the ocean, bobbing on the waves, with no food or fresh water around.
So how often did this actually happen?
If you look at the media, you probably think pirates made people walk the plank on a daily
basis. It did happen in real life - but it seems to be reserved for extreme situations. The first
event was actually a group of mutineers forcing their officers to walk the plank in the 1760s,
and slave ships often did it to their captives. It seemed to be a habit of
particularly sadistic pirates, but the visual caught on. In reality,
pirates would definitely be hesitant to do it for minor offenses - after all,
when running a large ship on a long-range course, every crew member matters, and even
captives can be put to work. There’s always the threat of the plank to keep them in line.
But it may not be the most sadistic seafaring punishment.
#2. Keelhauling
It was maybe the cruelest fate dealt out by sea captains - and surprisingly,
it wasn’t the pirates who were doing it. Dating back to the time of ancient Greece,
it was dealt out by the reputable sea captains. Mutineers, thieves, and pirates were subject to
this punishment - which began by tying a line to the sailor’s waist. The line was looped below the
vessel, and the sailor was then taken and thrown overboard. The sailor would then be dragged below
the ship’s keel, with the massive vessel bearing down on them and pushing them under the water.
But this was so much more than just the world’s worst case of waterboarding.
While not technically a death sentence, there were many ways it could go badly for the sailor. For
one thing, if the ship was moving too slowly, it would drown them before they arrived at the other
side and were picked up out of the water. Moving their head the wrong way at the wrong time could
result in the ship’s hull crushing their head and killing them instantly. But the worst part
was what lurked under the ship’s hull - barnacles, small sea creatures attached to the bottom of the
ship over years, giving it a jagged texture. This would often cut the back of the unfortunate sailor
to shreds - not only causing agonizing pain, but exposing them to a potentially fatal infection.
And while it isn’t the most famous punishment of the seas, it may be the harshest.
The most famous example of this punishment probably came in Mutiny on the Bounty,
where the infamous Captain Bligh keelhauls a sailor and causes him to die - which later
leads to him being overthrown. However, this was a fictional creation - the only crew members to
die on Blight’s ship died of natural causes. However, there is ample evidence that this
was a common punishment in the Dutch Navy. Most reports are that it wasn’t intended to
be a fatal punishment and was considered equivalent to flogging - which indicates
that it the captains may have overestimated just how hardy the average sailor was.
But nothing topped this evil punishment - and it’s back to Medieval England.
#1. Hanged, Drawn, and Quartered
No surprise, there is no greater crime in most societies than high
treason - probably because it threatens the safety of those in power, and they have the
power to pass laws giving those who consider it something to fear. And in the year 1352,
the current monarch passed a law creating a new punishment for those betraying him - one
that wasn’t just an execution. It was a spectacle, designed to destroy the culprit
in full view of the entire community - with each part of their execution being worse than the last.
Those sentenced to being hung, drawn, and quartered might just beg for death.
First, the convicted traitor is tied to a wooden board, which is then tied to the back
of the horse. The horse is then ridden through town, dragging the condemned to
their final execution place - often as jeering onlookers throw things at them along the route.
They’re then taken to the gallows and hung - but not in such a way that’ll break their neck.
They’re nearly strangled to the point of death, and cut down - and that’s when the torment truly
begins. First, they’re castrated. Then they’re disemboweled, beheaded, and their body cut into
four parts. At some point along the way, they die - but don’t let that stop the execution party.
This used to be reserved for the worst of the worst - but that wasn’t always the case.
Another variant of this sadistic punishment was simply quartering - and all you needed was some
rope and four horses. The condemned would have their limbs tied to the four horses,
with each one attached to a different horse. The horses would then be spooked - often by firing
a gun or firework into the air - and the horses would bolt. As they did, the horses would suddenly
and brutally pull the limbs of the condemned - often ripping them clean off. Rather an a formal
execution for treason, this was often an informal punishment for horse thieves - not approved of
by the legal authorities, if there were any, but they certainly weren’t going to interfere.
It kind of puts picking up trash for community service duty into perspective.
Want to see more of the worst punishments ever created? Check
out “Evil Punishments Designed to Be Worse Than Death” or watch this video instead.