Home divination Torture of women. The worst torture in the world. The most brutal executions: Hanged, drowned and dismembered

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Torture of women. The worst torture in the world. The most brutal executions: Hanged, drowned and dismembered

In antiquity and in the Middle Ages, torture was a cruel reality, and executioners' tools often became the pinnacle of engineering. We have collected 15 of the most terrible torture methods used to deal with witches, dissidents and other criminals.

Excrement bath

During the torture, known as "sitting in the bath", the condemned was placed in a wooden tub so that only the head was sticking out. After that, the executioner smeared his face with milk and honey so that flocks of flies flocked to him, which soon began to lay larvae in the body. The victim was also regularly fed, and in the end, the unfortunate one literally bathed in his excrement. After a few days, the larvae and worms began to devour the victim's body as it began to decompose alive.

copper bull

The device known as the Sicilian bull was created in Ancient Greece and was a copper or brass bull, hollow inside. On his side was a door through which the victim was placed inside. Then a fire was lit under the bull until the metal was white-hot. The screams of the victim were amplified by the iron structure and sounded like the roar of a bull.

Impalement

This punishment gained fame thanks to the famous Vlad the Impaler. The stake was sharpened, buried vertically in the ground, and then a person was placed on it. The victim, under its own weight, slid down the stake, punching the insides. Death did not come instantly, sometimes a person died for three days.

Crucifixion is one of the most famous torture methods of antiquity. This is how Jesus Christ was killed. This is a deliberately slow and painful punishment, in the course of which the convict's hands and feet were tied or nailed to a huge wooden cross. After that, he was left to hang until he died, which usually took several days.

Sprinkler

Typically, this device was filled with molten lead, tar, boiling water, or boiling oil, and then fixed so that the contents dripped onto the victim's stomach or eyes.

"Iron Maiden"

Iron cabinet with hinged front wall and internal space covered with spikes. A man was placed in a closet. Every movement brought terrible pain.

Rope as a murder weapon

The rope is the easiest of all torture devices to use and has been used in many ways. For example, it was used to tie a victim to a tree, leaving it then to be torn to pieces by animals. Also, with the help of an ordinary rope, people were hung or the limbs of the victim were tied to horses, which were allowed to gallop in different directions to tear off the limbs of the convict.

cement boots

Cement boots were invented by the American mafia to execute enemies, traitors and spies. They put their feet in a basin filled with cement. After the cement had dried, the victim was thrown alive into the river.

Guillotine

One of the most famous forms of execution, the guillotine was made from a razor-sharp blade tied to a rope. The head of the victim was fixed with blocks, after which a blade fell from above, cutting off the head. Decapitation was considered an instant and painless death.

Rack

The device, designed to dislocate every joint in the victim's body, was considered the most painful form of medieval torture. The rack was a wooden frame with ropes attached to its lower and upper parts. After the victim was tied up and placed on the platform, the executioner turned the handle, pulling on the ropes tied to the limbs. The skin, tendons were torn, all the joints came out of the bags, and as a result, the limbs were completely torn off the body.

rat torture

One of the most sadistic methods of torture involved taking a cage with one side open, filling it with large rats, and tying the open side to the victim's body. Then the cell was heated from the opposite side. The natural instinct of rodents made them run away from the heat, and there was only one way - through the body.

Judas torture chair

The terrifying device known as the Judas Chair appeared in the Middle Ages and was used in Europe until the 1800s. The chair was covered with 500 - 1500 spikes and fitted with stiff straps to hold the victim in place. Sometimes a hearth was installed under the seat to heat it from below. Such a chair was often used to scare people into confessing something while they were looking at the tortured victim in the chair.

Sawing

First, the victim was hung upside down, and then sawn alive, starting from the crotch.

Crocodile scissors

Such iron tongs were used to deal with regicides. The tool was heated red-hot, and then they crushed the testicles of the victim and tore them off the body.

wheeling

Torture, also known as Catherine's wheel, was used to slowly kill the victim. First, the limbs of the victim were tied on the spokes of a large wooden wheel, which then slowly rotated. At the same time, the executioner simultaneously broke the limbs of the victim with an iron hammer, trying to break them in many places. After the bones were broken, the victim was left on a wheel, which rose to a high pillar, so that the birds would feed on the flesh of a still living person.

It is known that almost every castle had its own set of torture instruments in the Middle Ages. There was such a terrible collection in the castle of Count Flandry in Belgium. It’s enough to look at to make goosebumps run down your back.

Chinese Bamboo Torture

The infamous way of the terrible Chinese execution all over 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 as much as a 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.

Bamboo grove. (pinterest.com)

How it works?

1) Live bamboo sprouts are sharpened with a knife to make sharp “spears”;
2) The victim is suspended horizontally, back or belly over a bed of young pointed bamboo;
3) Bamboo grows rapidly in height, pierces the skin of the martyr and sprouts through his abdominal cavity, the person dies very long and painfully.

Like torture with bamboo, many researchers consider the "iron maiden" a terrible legend. Perhaps these metal sarcophagi with sharp spikes inside only frightened the defendants, after which they confessed to anything.

"Iron Maiden"

The Iron Maiden was invented at the end of the 18th century, that is, already at the end of the Catholic Inquisition.

"Iron Maiden". (pinterest.com)

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 rather short and do not pierce the victim through, but only cause pain. The investigator, as a rule, in a matter of minutes receives a confession, which the arrested person only has to sign;
3) If the prisoner shows fortitude and continues to be silent, long nails, knives and rapiers are pushed through special holes in the sarcophagus. The pain becomes simply unbearable;
4) The victim never confesses to his deed, then she was locked in a sarcophagus for a long time, where she died from blood loss;
5) In some models of the "iron maiden" spikes were provided at eye level to gouge them out.

The name of this torture comes from the Greek "skafium", which means "trough". Skafism 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 that were not indifferent to human flesh and blood.

Skafism. (pinterest.com)

How it works?

1) The prisoner is placed in a shallow trough and wrapped in chains.
2) He is force-fed with large amounts of milk and honey, which causes the victim to develop copious diarrhea that attracts insects.
3) A prisoner, shabby, smeared with honey, is allowed to swim in a trough in a swamp, where there are many hungry creatures.
4) Insects immediately start the meal, as the main dish - the living flesh of the martyr.

Pear of suffering

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

Pear of suffering. (pinterest.com)

How it works?

1) The tool, consisting of pointed pear-shaped leaf-shaped segments, is thrust into the client's desired hole in the body;
2) The executioner slowly 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 opened, the completely guilty person 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, the coppersmith Perill, who sold his terrible bull to the Sicilian tyrant Falaris, who simply adored torturing and killing people in unusual ways.

Inside the copper statue, through a special door, they pushed a living person. And then Falaris first tested the unit on its creator, the greedy Perilla. Subsequently, Falaris himself was roasted in a bull.

Copper bull. (pinterest.com)

How it works?

1) The victim is closed in a hollow copper statue of a bull;
2) A fire is kindled under the belly of the bull;
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 charms were made from the bones of the executed, which were sold in the bazaars and were in great demand.

Rat torture was very popular in ancient China. However, we will consider the rat punishment technique developed by the leader of the 16th century Dutch Revolution, Didrik Sonoy.

Rats torture. (pinterest.com)

How it works?

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

Cradle of Judas

The cradle of Judas was one of the most tormenting machines in the arsenal of the Suprema, the Spanish Inquisition. The victims usually died of infection, due to the fact that the peaked 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 and did not tear ligaments.

Cradle of Judas. (pinterest.com)

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 pierces the anus or vagina;
3) With the help of ropes, the victim is gradually lowered lower and lower;
4) Torture continues for several hours or even days, until the victim dies of impotence and pain, or from blood loss due to rupture of soft tissues.

Rack

Probably the most famous, and unsurpassed in its kind, death machine called "rack". It was first experienced around 300 CE. e. on the Christian martyr Vincent of Zaragoza.

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

Rack. (pinterest.com)

How it works?

1. This instrument of torture is a special bed with rollers at both ends, on which ropes were wound, holding the wrists and ankles of the victim. When the rollers rotated, the ropes stretched in opposite directions, stretching the body;
2. Ligaments in the hands and feet of the victim are stretched and torn, bones pop out of the 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 was tied with his hands behind his back and lifted by the rope tied to his hands. Sometimes a log or other weights were attached to his bound legs. At the same time, the hands of a person raised on a rack twisted back and often came out of their joints, so that the convict had to hang on twisted 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 a rack was beaten with a whip on the back, and “applied to the fire”, that is, they drove burning brooms over the body.
5. In some cases, the executioner broke the ribs of a person hanging on a rack with red-hot tongs.

Shiri (camel cap)

A monstrous fate awaited those whom the Zhuanzhuans (the union of nomadic Turkic-speaking peoples) took into their slavery. They destroyed the memory of the slave by a terrible torture - by putting Shiri on the head of the victim. Usually this fate befell young guys captured in battles.

Shiri. (pinterest.com)

How it works?

1. First, the slaves shaved their heads, carefully scraping out every hair under the root.
2. The executioners slaughtered the camel and skinned its carcass, first of all, separating its heaviest, densest part.
3. Divided into pieces, it was immediately pulled in pairs over the shaved heads of the prisoners. These pieces, like a plaster, stuck around the heads of slaves. This meant putting on wide.
4. After putting on the width, the neck of the doomed was shackled 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 cries, and they were thrown there in an open field, with 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 torments caused by drying out, shrinking rawhide camel skin on the head. Inexorably shrinking under the rays of the scorching sun, the width squeezed, squeezing the shaved head of a slave 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 rawhide, in most cases, finding no way out, the hair bent and again went into the scalp with its ends, causing even greater suffering. A day later, the man lost his mind. Only on the fifth day did the Zhuanzhuans come to check whether any of the prisoners had survived. If at least one of the tortured was caught alive, it was believed that the goal was achieved.
7. The one who was subjected to 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 skins of one camel were enough for five or six widths.

spanish water torture

In order to best perform the procedure of this torture, the accused was placed on one of the varieties of the rack or on a special large table with a rising middle part. After the victim's hands and feet were tied to the edges of the table, the executioner went to work in one of several ways. One of these methods was that the victim was forced to swallow a large amount of water with a funnel, then beaten on the inflated and arched stomach.

Water torture. (pinterest.com)

Another form involved placing a rag tube down the victim's throat, through which water was slowly poured in, causing the victim to bloat and suffocate. If that wasn't enough, the tube was pulled out, causing internal damage, and then reinserted and the process repeated. Sometimes they used torture cold water. In this case, the accused lay naked on the table for hours under a jet of icy water. It is interesting to note that this kind of torture was regarded as light, and confessions obtained in this way were accepted by the court as voluntary and given to the defendants without the use of torture. Most often, these tortures were used by the Spanish Inquisition in order to knock out 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 enclosed in stocks attached to the legs of the chair. When he was in such a completely helpless position, a brazier was placed under his feet; with hot coals, so that the legs began to slowly roast, and in order to prolong the suffering of the poor fellow, the legs were poured with oil from time to time.

Spanish armchair. (pinterest.com)

Another version of the Spanish chair was often used, which was a metal throne, to which the victim was tied and a fire was made under the seat, roasting the buttocks. The well-known poisoner La Voisin was tortured on such an armchair 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 fictional, but there is no evidence that the gridiron "survived" until the Middle Ages and had at least little circulation in Europe. It is usually described as an ordinary metal grate, 6 feet long and two and a half feet wide, set horizontally on legs so that a fire can be built under it.

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 very rarely resorted to. Firstly, it was easy enough to kill the interrogated person, and secondly, there were a lot of simpler, but no less cruel tortures.

blood eagle

One of the most ancient tortures, during which the victim was tied face down and his back was opened, the ribs were broken off at the spine and spread apart like wings. In Scandinavian legends, it is stated that during such an execution, salt was sprinkled on the wounds of the victim.

Blood eagle. (pinterest.com)

Many historians claim that this torture was used by pagans against Christians, others are sure that spouses convicted of treason were punished in this way, and still others claim that the bloody eagle is just terrible legend.

"Catherine's Wheel"

Before tying the victim to the wheel, her limbs were broken. When rotating, the legs and arms finally broke out, bringing unbearable torment to the victim. Some died from pain shock, while others suffered for several days.

Wheel of Catherine. (pinterest.com)

spanish donkey

A wooden log in the form of a triangle was fixed on the "legs". The naked victim was placed on top of a sharp corner that cut right into the crotch. To make the torture more unbearable, weights were tied to the legs.

Spanish donkey. (pinterest.com)

spanish boot

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

Spanish boot. (pinterest.com)

Quartering by horses

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

Quartering. (pinterest.com)

Many unfortunates throughout the history of mankind have experienced all the horrors of torture, but the worst thing is not that these terrible methods of bullying a person existed. Worse, how the authors of the tortures were sophisticated, wanting to deliver maximum torment to their victims.

1. Sitting in the bathroom

The convict was seated in a tub, from which only his head protruded. After the executioner smeared the face of the unfortunate with milk and honey, so that flies flocked to him. The victim was also regularly given food. Ultimately, the man actually bathed in his own feces and rotted alive, while his flesh was eaten by flies and worms.

2. Copper bull

Copper, also known as the Sicilian bull, was designed by the ancient Greeks. This is a copper structure, hollow inside, and with a door on one side. A man was put inside the bull through the latter. After the doors were closed, a fire was lit under the structure. The bull was white-hot, the victim was screaming in a voice that was not his own, and these cries resembled a bull's roar.

It was Vlad the Impaler's favorite method of torture. The stick was sharpened and driven into the ground, and the convict was placed on the tip. Under the weight of its own weight, the victim gradually slid down the stake and pierced his internal organs. Death when impaled on a stake did not occur immediately. Some died for three days. And it gave Vlad a special pleasure. Once he executed 20 thousand people and calmly watched their torment, enjoying a meal.

4. Heretic Fork

The torture device consists of a metal bar with forks at the ends. One end was placed under the chin, and the other - on the collarbone. The fork was attached to the neck with a strap. The victims were not supposed to fall asleep. As soon as they were smeared, the head dropped, and the fork stuck into the throat and chest.

A very humiliating and painful form of torture. A collar made of metal and wood was worn around the victim's neck. After that, for several days the person could not lie down, lower his head, eat. Otherwise, sharp spikes pierced his throat.

This is one of the most famous tortures, and is still practiced in some countries to this day. It consists in tying or nailing a person's limbs to a wooden cross. After this, the unfortunate man is left hanging in the open air without food or water, almost naked. Death by crucifixion does not come soon. It takes several painful days to exhaust.

The instrument of torture is a pyramid on high legs. The convict was planted with his crotch on the point and tied by the limbs. The man sank deeper and deeper into the cone under the weight of his own weight. At night, he was removed from the pyramid and left in limbo to bleed, and the next morning the torture continued. Death occurred within a few days, and often the cause of it was infection - no one ever washed the tip of the cone.

8. Sprinkler

As a rule, molten lead, boiling water, resin or hot oil were poured inside the gun. After the mace was attached in such a way that its contents dripped onto the victim's stomach or into the eyes.

Wardrobe with a folding front wall and a huge number of spikes on the lid. A man was placed inside the maiden, and when the lid was closed, he practically could not move - every movement brought hellish pain.

10. Coffin of torture

A favorite method of torture during the Middle Ages. It consisted in the fact that the victim was placed inside a cell the size of a human body. Fat people were deliberately put in smaller cages. The closed "coffin" was hung on a tree and left on the street to be eaten by birds and animals.

There are many different types of this instrument of torture, but the principle of operation of all of them is the same. The vise is intended for crushing the fingers and toes, knees, elbows. There is even a vise for the cranium. During the Middle Ages, this method of torture was very popular.

12 Rope Torture

The rope is the simplest but most versatile instrument of torture. People have found many uses for it. The rope was used on the gallows. Victims were tied to trees with ropes and left to be torn to pieces by wild animals. The rope was also used to fasten the limbs of the unfortunate to the horses, which were subsequently allowed to run in different directions, and the person was torn to pieces.

13. Pear of suffering

Another terrible instrument of torture was a pear with petals that open when the screw is tightened. The pear was inserted into the mouth or anus of the victim (often in the vagina for girls) and the screw was gradually tightened, thereby tearing the internal organs. The victim died a long painful death.

This is one of the most painful and terrible tortures in the Middle Ages. The tool is a frame with ropes. The victim was tied up and placed on the platform. After that, the executioner began to turn the handle, which pulled out the ropes tied to the limbs of the victim. As a result, bones were broken, muscles were torn, joints popped out. But even after that, the executioners continued to stretch the ropes until the limbs of the victim were torn off the body.

Huge scissors easily cut out people's tongues. The mouth for the "procedure" was opened forcibly with the help of special stretch marks.

For some, being in the same room with rats is already torture. The essence of this method lies in the fact that a cage with rodents without one wall is placed on the body of the victim. After attaching the structure, they began to heat it from the other side, and the rats, trying to escape from the heat, gnawed their way to freedom through the person.

17. Torture chair

Or the Judas chair. On its surface there are from 500 to 1500 spikes. The victim is held in the chair with stiff straps. Sometimes a source of heat was placed under the chair. The torture chair was often used for intimidation and caused many to "split".

18. Cement boots

The method was invented by the American mafia. When mafiosi executed their enemies, they poured cement mortar over their feet. As soon as the latter hardened, the person was thrown into the river.

19. Forceps-"bibs"

Women were subjected to the same methods of torture as men. But this tool was created specifically for them. The tongs dug into the flesh and pulled out or slowly pulled out. Death occurred as a result of severe blood loss.

20. Crocodile scissors

They were used to execute those who rebelled against the king and tried to kill the monarch. Before crushing and cutting off the victim's testicles, the scissors were heated.

Popular torture during the French Revolution. The victims are a man and a woman. They were stripped naked, tied up and left to drown in this form.

Catherine's wheel made it possible to kill the victim painfully slowly. The unfortunate person was tied to the gun and slowly started to rotate. At this moment, the executioner struck with a hammer on the limbs. When all the bones were broken, the still living victim with the wheel was raised to a high pillar, where birds could feed on its flesh.

23. Spanish donkey

The naked victim was laid astride a structure of wooden boards with a blade on top. Weights are tied to the limbs of the martyr. The weight increases until the blade cuts through flesh.

24. Sawing

The victim was hung upside down so that the blood rushed to the head, and she remained conscious longer. After that, the unfortunate began to be cut in half from the crotch. Many were cut only to the stomach to increase the torment and prolong the agony.

25. Suspended, drowned, dismembered

For high treason in England during the Middle Ages, a person was hanged, drowned and quartered in public. The victim was placed in a frame for executions. After that, the accused was strangled to a pulp, castrated and burned his genitals in front of his own eyes, and at the end they quartered and cut off his head.

What do you think was the worst thing in the Middle Ages? Lack of toothpaste good soap or shampoo? The fact that "medieval discos" were held to the tedious music of mandolins? Or maybe the fact that medicine did not yet know vaccinations and antibiotics? Or endless wars? Yes, our ancestors didn't go to the cinema or send emails to each other. But they were also inventors.

And the worst thing that they invented was the tools for torture, the tools with which the system of Christian justice was created - the Inquisition. And for those who lived in the Middle Ages, "Iron Maiden" is not the name of a heavy metal band, but one of the most disgusting gadgets of the time. For the especially nervous and sensitive, please do not look under cat.

The term "inquisition" comes from the Latin. Inquisitio, meaning "interrogation, inquiry." The term was widespread in the legal sphere even before the emergence of medieval church institutions with that name, and meant the clarification of the circumstances of the case, by investigation, usually through interrogations, 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. At the same time, the interrogations were carried out in secret, and the execution in the squares was visually familiar to contemporaries, so the artists of those times sketched it with certainty. But the tortures of the Inquisition were painted based on other people's words, often relying on imagination. 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. Before you are twenty instruments of torture of the Middle Ages.

20. Spiked shoes

These are iron shoes with a sharp spike under the heel. The spike could be unscrewed with a screw. With the spike unscrewed, the torture victim had to stand on his toes as long as he had the strength. Stand on your toes and see how long you can last.

Central Europe is the main place of his popularity. The sinner was stripped naked, put on a chair studded with spikes. It was impossible to move - otherwise, not only stab wounds appeared on the body, but also tears. If this was not enough for the inquisitors, they took spikes or tongs in their hands and tormented the limbs of the victim. Of course, you will not have “reverse stilettos” under your heels, so the sinners endured much longer. But, when their strength dried up, the body itself leaned on the heel. Then everything is clear - pain and blood.

19. Heretic's Fork

Four spikes - two digging into the chin, two - into the sternum, did not allow the victim to make any head movements, including lowering his head lower.

18. Witch bath chair

The sinner was tied to an armchair suspended from a long pole, and lowered under water for a while, then they were allowed to take a breath of air, and again - under water. A popular time of year for such torture is late autumn or even winter. An ice hole was made in the ice, and after a while the victim not only suffocated under water without air, but even in such a welcome air was covered with a crust of ice. Sometimes the torture lasted for days.

17. Spanish boot

16. Water torture

This method was "peeped" by the inquisitors in the east. The sinner was tied with barbed wire or strong ropes to a special wooden device such as a table with a strongly raised middle - so that the sinner's stomach would stick out as far as possible. His mouth was stuffed with rags or straw so that it would not close, and a tube was inserted into his mouth, through which an incredible amount of water was poured into the victim. If the victim did not interrupt this torture in order to confess to something, or the purpose of the torture was unequivocal death, at the end of the test, the victim was removed from the table, laid on the ground, and the executioner jumped on her swollen stomach. The ending is understandable and disgusting.

15. Iron hook (cat's claw)

It is clear that it was not used to scratch your back. The flesh of the victim was torn - slowly, painfully, to the point that with the same hooks, not only pieces of the body, but also the ribs were pulled out from her.

14. Rack

The same rack. There were two main options: vertical, when the victim was hung from the ceiling, twisting the joints and hanging all the heavy weights from her legs, and horizontal, when the body of the sinner was fixed on the rack and stretched by a special mechanism until her muscles and joints were torn .

13. Quartering by horses

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

12. Pear

This device was inserted into the holes of the body - it is clear that not in the mouth or ears - and opened so as to inflict unimaginable pain on the victim, tearing these holes.

11. Purification of the soul

In many Catholic countries, the clergy believed that the soul of a sinner could still be cleansed. For these purposes, they had to use either pouring boiling water into the throat of a sinner, or throwing hot coals into the same place. You understand that in caring for the soul there was no place for caring for the body.

10. Hanging cage

Assumed two extreme ways of exploitation. In cold weather, like a witch's bathing chair, the sinner in this cage, suspended from a long pole, was lowered under water and taken out of it, making him freeze and suffocate.

And in the heat, the sinner hung in it in the sun for as many days as he could endure without a drop of water to drink.

9. Skull press

How a sinner could somehow repent of something, when first his teeth clenched and crumbled, then his jaw crumbled, followed by the bones of the skull - until the brain poured out of his ears - I do not understand. Even more inaccessible to my consciousness is the information that in some countries a version of this crusher is still used as an interrogation tool.

8. Bonfire

This was the main way to eradicate the witch's influence on other people's sinless souls. The burnt soul ruled out any possibility of embarrassing or soiling the sinless soul. What doubts can there be?

7. Vigil or Cradle of Judas

The know-how belongs to Hippolyte Marsili. At one time, this instrument of torture was considered loyal - it did not break bones, it did not tear ligaments. First, the sinner was lifted on a rope, and then he sat down on the Cradle, and the top of the triangle was inserted into the same holes as the Pear. It hurt to such an extent that the sinner lost consciousness. It was lifted, "pumped out" and again planted on the Cradle. I do not think that in moments of enlightenment, sinners thanked Hippolytus for his invention.

6. Cradle

Cousin of the Cradle of Judas. I don't think the picture leaves any room for imagination as to how this instrument of torture was used. Also a fair amount of crap.

5. Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden. Nuremberg Maiden.

This is not "three girls under the window." This is a huge sarcophagus in the form of an open empty female figure, inside which numerous blades and sharp spikes are fixed. They are located in such a way that the vital organs of the victim imprisoned in the sarcophagus are not affected, so the agony of the sentenced to death was long and painful. The Virgin was first used in 1515. The condemned man died for three days.

4. Interrogation chair

3. Number

In the East they came up with this terrible execution. The fact is that a person who was skillfully impaled - his end had to stick out of the victim's throat (and not as shown in this picture), could live for several more days - suffer physically and mentally, since this execution was public.

2. Saw

The executioners and inquisitors of those years showed remarkable ingenuity in their work. Better than ours, they knew why a person experiences pain, and they knew that in an unconscious state, he would not feel pain. And what is the execution in the Middle Ages without sadism? A person could meet ordinary death everywhere, it was not uncommon. And an unusual and very painful death is sawing. The victim was hung upside down so that the blood would not stop supplying oxygen to the head, and the person experienced the full horror of pain. It used to happen that he lived to see the moment when they slowly, slowly managed to saw his body up to the diaphragm.

1. Wheeling

If you have read this far, I present to you one of the most vile methods of execution in existence.

Sentenced to wheeling with an iron crowbar or wheel, all the large bones of the body were broken, then he was tied to a large wheel, and the wheel was mounted on a pole. The condemned would end up face up, looking up at the sky, and die like that from shock and dehydration, often for quite a long time. The suffering of the dying man was aggravated by the birds pecking at him. Sometimes, instead of a wheel, they simply used a wooden frame or a cross made of logs.

And, although it is believed that the instruments of torture were more often demonstrated than used, nevertheless, it was not for nothing that the UN proclaimed June 26 since 1997 as the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.