People are beasts
Torture is "the purposeful infliction of torture, both physical and psychological, in order to obtain information or punishment."
Torture began around 530 BC. e., when Roman lawyers began to use them during interrogations. But more frightening is the fact that over the past centuries people have invented many new ways to inflict pain and death in the most cruel ways.
The inventors of torture weapons have always managed to show originality. Involuntarily you begin to wonder if this craft did not give them a perverse pleasure?
However, see for yourself. Here are 27 of the worst tortures in human history.
1. Collar
A wooden or metal rim with sharp spikes was worn around the neck. This humiliating and painful device did not allow a person to lie down, eat, or even lower his head.
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2. Trough
The prisoner was placed in a wooden trough so that only his head was sticking out, and fed regularly, from which he soon found himself immersed in his own feces. Then worms and larvae, breeding in the decaying waste, began to devour him alive. The executioner could also smear the prisoner's face with milk and honey to attract flies.
3. Heretic's Fork
A metal device with two-pronged forks at the ends. It is attached to the collar, and the tortured person is suspended from the ceiling. One end of the fork rests against the chin, the other against the sternum. If the unfortunate person lowers or drops his head … you understand.
4. Bondage torture
This torture is easy to use, since no special tools are required, and an experienced executioner can always come up with different ways to inflict torture with a simple rope. You can hang the victim, tie it to galloping horses, or simply tie it to a tree and leave it to be devoured by wild animals.
5. Count
Favorite method of execution of Vlad Tepes (Dracula). The victim was forcibly seated on a thick pointed stake. Then the stake was placed evenly, and the victim slowly slid along it under the weight of his own weight. It usually took 3 days to die. In front of Vlad's eyes, 20,000 people were executed in this way - while he was enjoying his meals.
6. Hanging cage
The most popular torture of the Middle Ages. The victim was locked up in such a cramped cage and hung from a tree or from a gallows. The fat and obese were also pushed into such cells, causing additional torment. There they were left to die so that the birds would then peck at their remains.
7. Iron maiden
It is a huge sarcophagus in the form of an open empty female figure, inside which numerous blades and sharp thorns are fixed. The victim was put inside and closed, after which the executioner began interrogation.
8. Splattered
The executioner filled this device with red-hot resin, molten lead, boiling water or boiling oil, and then sprinkled the contents on the victim's body. Death usually occurred when the executioner filled the victim's eyes with liquid silver.
9. Crucifixion
This practice is still preserved in some places. This is a slow and painful execution: the victim is nailed or tied to a huge wooden cross and left to die. This is the most famous execution due to the crucifixion of Christ.
10. Cradle of Judas
The victim is seated on a high pyramidal structure and pulled by the tied ropes. Gradually, the top of the pyramid enters deeper and deeper into the anus. It was not customary to wash the cradle, so the prisoner died either from tissue rupture or from infection.
11. Hanging, gutting and quartering
In medieval England, a person convicted of treason was sentenced to hanging, gutting and quartering (this practice was officially abolished only in 1814). The sentenced were tied to a wooden sled and dragged by horses to the place of execution. They were hung there, but not for long so that they would not suffocate. Then they were gutted and castrated, and their intestines and genitals were burned at the stake in front of them. Finally, the victim was dismembered and decapitated (quartered).
12. Saw
The victim was hung upside down so that the blood did not stop supplying oxygen to the head, and the person experienced all the horror of pain. The executioners then sawed him in half, but usually no further than his belly, to prolong the agony.
13. Republican marriage
This is Jean-Baptiste Carrier's favorite method during the French Revolution. A man and a woman (usually a priest and a nun) were stripped naked, tied together, and thrown into an icy lake. If there was no reservoir nearby, they were pierced with swords and bayonets.
14. Wheeling
All large bones were broken with an iron hammer, then they tied him to a large wheel and set the wheel on a pole. The condemned person found himself face up, looking at the sky, and died like that from shock and dehydration, often for quite a long time. The suffering of the dying man was aggravated by the birds that pecked at him. Sometimes the executioner "showed mercy" by killing the victim with a targeted hammer blow to the stomach or head.
15. Spanish donkey
The naked victim is seated on a board pointed upwards. Then weights of various weights are hooked onto her legs so that the sharp edge goes deeper …
16. Rat torture
A large cage with hungry rats is placed on the prisoner's stomach. The bottom of the cage is opened with a special latch. Hot coals are placed on top of the cage to stir the rats. Trying to escape from the heat of hot coals, rats gnaw their way through the flesh of the victim.
17. Judas chair
In Europe, it was used from the Middle Ages until the end of the 19th century. The chair was covered with from 500 to 1500 thorns, and the victim was tied to it with leather straps. It could also be hot. Usually it was enough to see someone being tortured with a Judas chair to immediately confess.
18. Cement shoes
The traditional execution of the American mafia is usually for enemies, traitors and informers. Cement blocks are put on the victim's feet, which are then filled with liquid cement. When the cement has frozen, the victim is thrown alive into a river or other deep body of water.
19. Breast Forceps
This instrument of torture was invented especially for women. The executioner heated the tongs in the fire and pierced the unfortunate woman's chest with them. Then he tugged or pulled at the tongs, ripping out pieces of flesh.
20. Crocodile ticks
This method was commonly used against failed regicides. The pincers were red-hot and were used by the executioner to torture and tear off the prisoner's penis.
21. Vise for fingers
This tool was used to crush fingers and toes. There were also larger modifications that allowed the executioner to crush the elbows and knees of the victim. There was even a Head Crusher. In the Middle Ages, this was a common method of interrogation.
22. Tongue cutter
As the name suggests, this tool is designed to cut off the victim's tongue. First, the mouth is fixed open with a special device. Then the executioner squeezes the tongue with the rough surfaces of the instrument. Having securely gripped the tongue, the executioner turns the screw until the tongue is cut.
23. Dyba
This was considered the most excruciating torture of the Middle Ages, aimed at dislocating all bones. The victim's body was fixed on a rack and stretched with a special mechanism until the muscles and joints were torn. Just in case, the executioner continued to turn the mechanism until the limbs were completely ripped off.
24. Guillotine
The sharpest blade on the rope - yes, this is one of the most famous methods of execution. The victim's head was pushed into a wooden frame, then the executioner let go of the rope, and the blade cut the victim's neck with speed. They say that this is the most humane execution, because death occurs instantly upon beheading.
25. Copper (Sicilian) bull
The victim is covered in a hollow copper statue of a bull, and a fire is made under the belly of the bull. The victim is gradually suffocated and roasted alive. The structure of the bull is such that the cries of the martyr are heard from the jaws of the statue, like a bull's roar.
26. Pear
The pear was used as a weapon of influence on blasphemers, liars, women who gave birth outside of marriage and homosexuals. Depending on the crime, the torturer would put a pear into the victim's mouth, anus or vagina.
The instrument consisted of pointed, pear-shaped leaf-shaped segments. The executioner gradually twisted the screw on the top of the pear, while the “leaves” -segments blossomed inside the martyr, causing hellish pain. After the pear is opened, the guilty person receives internal injuries incompatible with life, and dies in terrible agony, if he has not already fallen into unconsciousness before.
There were special pears for anal, vaginal and oral torture. They differed in patterns and sizes.
27. Spanish scallop
This instrument of torture consisted of long and sharp curved spines, like claws. Sometimes it sat on a stick, sometimes on the executioner's hand. Then the executioner began to tear the victim's skin and flesh. This torture was often applied to thieves and unfaithful wives. Most of them did not die immediately. During the torture, infections were often brought in, because no one washed the thorns.