Hey there viewers!
Consider yourself lucky.
If you are watching this video, you most likely live in a society blessed by a functioning
legal system.
You also probably live in a society which makes an attempt to fairly and efficiently
deliver justice, especially in the case of capital punishment.
However during earlier times, when there were no hard-written criminal laws, brutal tortures
were a common method to serve punishments.
For most of history, capital punishment was focused on drawing it out long enough that
the victim would be put through as much hell on earth as possible before dying.
And in today’s video, we will tell you about a few of humanity’s most brutal punishments.
From punishments like scaphism, rat torture, elephant execution, impalement to the roman
candle and more, watch till the end to learn about all of them.
Scaphism: This was an ancient Persian method of execution where a person was stripped naked
and placed in a tree trunk.
Only their head, hands, and feet were allowed to protrude.
They were then force fed milk and honey until they developed a severe case of diarrhea.
All of their exposed skin would then be covered in honey to attract insects while they were
left floating in a stagnant pond.
As the person’s feces accumulated, the insects it attracted would begin to eat and breed
within their skin which would become increasingly gangrenous.
Death could take over 2 weeks and was likely the result of starvation, dehydration, and
shock.
The Rack: The rack was a torture and punishment device used during the middle ages throughout
Europe and parts of Asia.
The purpose of this device was simple; slowly stretching every joint in the victim’s body
to induce almost unbearable pain.
Suspects or convicts were chained by their wrists and ankles to rollers located on both
ends of the wooden frame.
The chains were then slowly retracted using a ratchet mechanism attached to the rollers
causing the joints to stretch and even fracture.
The last known use of such a torture mechanism was done in 18th century in Russia.
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Iron Maiden: Often described as one of the most excruciating torture device made in the
middle ages, the iron maiden sure lived up to its reputation.
A typical iron maiden design was similar to that of a sarcophagus.
Earlier models were created with holes instead of protruding spikes, although long spears
were manually pushed inside.
Not only did the victims suffer from grievous puncture wounds but also claustrophobia.
Torturers were often careful not to impale vital organs which would end the victim’s
life instantly.
Perhaps the most famous iron maiden ever built was that of Nuremberg, also called the Nuremberg
virgin.
It was first publicly displayed in 1802.
Sawing: Sawing people to death was actually a really popular form of execution in the
ancient world.
The Romans, Persians, Jews, and Egyptians all sawed people to death.
Methods varied, but the most horrendous type of sawing was the one where lawmen would string
criminals upside down, spread eagle and saw them from the anus or vagina to their abdomen,
where they would then bleed to death slowly.
Because they were upside down, the blood rush to their heads would keep the criminals conscious
throughout the whole horrific process.
Sawing people as a method of execution disappeared not with the end of ancient times but in the
1820s or ‘30s.
This happened with the weakening of the Ottoman Empire and the conquest of Vietnam by the
French.
Rat Torture: This is the one where a bunch of rats were placed on a criminal’s stomach,
chest, or buttocks and covered with a pottery bowl, open side face-down.
Then, hot charcoal was placed on the other end of the bowl, so that the rats would have
no choice but to eat through the victim if they wanted to escape the heat.
Rat torture is alleged to have been used as currently as the 1980s by military governments
and intelligence agencies in Latin America.
In 1980s Argentina, Jewish prisoners had a tube filled with starving rats forcibly inserted
into their anus.
Breaking Wheel: This awful method of execution, known also as the French wheel or the Catherine
wheel, involved strapping a criminal to a spoked wooden wheel and breaking all of the
bones in their body starting with the legs.
The origins of this method of execution are unknown, but it is believed to have been invented
in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.
Aside from breaking the bones of convicted witches or suspected sectarian enemies, the
breaking wheel was used by slave-owners in the New World to crush rebelliousness well
into the 19th century.
Oh, and the bone breaking was only the first part of a two-part act.
After all of the bones were crushed with a mallet or hammer, the body of the still-alive
criminal was transferred onto a second wheel and threaded through the spokes before being
hoisted up into the air for the passersby to view at their pleasure.
The birds and other scavengers that eventually came to pick the meat of the criminal’s
bones ensured, according to medieval superstition, that the said criminal’s soul never reached
heaven.
Elephant Execution: This method of punishment was occasionally used in the Western world;
however, it was more common in South and Southeast Asia, especially in India.
This form of capital punishment was used from the Middle Ages until the 19th century.
The most common way that the execution by elephant was carried out was for the beasts
to crush its victim to death with brute force.
The elephant was considered to be smart and easily trainable compared to many other wild
animals . They could even be taught to torture criminals, or execute them slowly.
As an example, an elephant could be commanded to break a criminal’s limbs before crushing
his skull.
Some elephants were also trained to slice criminals to pieces with pointed blades fitted
to their tusks.
In the former Kingdom of Siam, now Thailand, elephants were trained to toss their victims
into the air before crushing them to death.
In the Kingdom of Cochinchina , now southern Vietnam, criminals were tied to a stake and
an elephant would charge into them and crush them to death.
The Brazen Bull: Legend has it that during the 6th century BC, a brass worker named Perilous
of Athens designed what is arguably the most sadistic torture method to date, the Brazen
Bull.
In this device, the victim would be placed inside a hollowed brass bull with a fire lit
underneath.
A system of tubes inside the statue would then amplify the victim's screams to sound
like a raging bull.
The story goes that the tyrant ruler Phalaris was so appalled by this device that he tricked
Perilous into entering the bull to be its first victim.
The Blood Eagle: This was a technique ascribed to ancient Norse warriors.
The blood eagle mixed brutality and poetic imagery in a way that only the Vikings could.
First, the victim’s back would be hacked open and the skin ripped apart, exposing the
spinal column.
The ribs would then be snapped from the spine and forcibly bent backwards.
This was done until they faced outwards from the body, forming a pair of bloody, shattered
eagle’s wings.
As a horrifying finale, the lungs would then be pulled from the body cavity and coated
with stinging salt, causing eventual death by suffocation.
Impalement: Most famously used by Vlad the Impaler, 15th century ruler of Wallachia and
inspiration for Count Dracula, the act of impalement has a long, grim history.
Images tend to depict people skewered through the midsection and then held aloft resulting
in instant death.
But in reality, the process was a much longer, horrifically drawn out ordeal.
Traditionally, the stake would be partially sharpened and planted, pointed up, in the
ground.
The victim would then be placed over the spike as it was inserted partway into the rectum
or vagina.
As their own body weight dragged them further onto the pole, the semi-greased wooden stake
would force its way up through their body, piercing organs with an agonizing slowness
as it eventually penetrated the entire torso.
This would eventually tear an exit wound through the skin of the shoulder, neck or throat.
According to some accounts, it could take the victim who was exposed, bleeding, and
writhing in tormented agony as long as eight whole days to die.
Roman Candle: A rumored favorite of the mad Roman Emperor Nero, this method saw the subject
tied to a stake and smeared with flammable pitch.
It could be a tree or plant resin, then they were set ablaze, slowly burning to death from
the feet up.
What sets this above the many other similar methods is the fact that the victims were
sometimes lined up outside to provide the lighting for one of Nero’s evening parties.
The Cradle Of Judas: The Cradle of Judas, also known as the judas chair, was a pyramid-shaped
wooden structure or chair which was forced into the perineum region of the one accused.
With the help of ropes, the convicts would be lowered on top of the wooden structure.
Tortures then let gravity to slowly stretch one of the most sensitive parts of the human
body.
Few additional weights were often added to speed things up for the worse.
Which one of the punishments did you find most cruel?
Are there any brutal ones that we missed?
Let us know in the comments section below!