Chinese bamboo torture. Impalement

22.12.2019 -

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, not only medieval Europe 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 him abdominal cavity, a person dies for a very long time and painfully.

Iron Maiden

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) Spikes driven into internal walls « iron maiden" are quite short and do not pierce the victim through, 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 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”. 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 who were partial to human flesh and blood.

During the torture, the victim of “scaphism” was devoured alive by insects and their larvae

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.

Pear of suffering

This cruel tool was used to punish abortionists, liars and homosexuals. The device was inserted into the vagina of women or anus in 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.

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 “leaf” 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.

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.

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 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.

Trying to escape the heat of the coals, rats gnaw their way through the body

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.

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, due to 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) 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.

The survivor of the rack turned into 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. In this case, 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 arms turned out. 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.

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 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 hands tied and feet, 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.

The Judas Cradle, as an instrument of torture, was considered “loyal”

Spanish water torture

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 a table under a stream of ice water for hours. 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.

Poisoner La Voisin was tortured on a Spanish chair

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.

Painting in the Torture Museum in Amsterdam

Do you think your boss and mother-in-law are annoying you? Do not rush to call your life torture. Those who have actually experienced what this word means never mention it “in vain.”

Probably everyone has heard about this painful execution. It is possible, however, that the rumors about it are just a myth, since not a single documentary evidence of the use of such torture has survived.

The fact is that bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants on the planet. Some Chinese varieties can grow a whole meter in a day. Therefore, the “instructions” for torture were as follows: bamboo shoots were sharpened with a knife so that sharp stakes were obtained. The unfortunate man was then suspended over a bed of sharpened bamboo in horizontal position(back or stomach down). There was no need to do anything else - the bamboo simply grew, piercing the victim’s flesh more and more and growing in it. The unfortunate man died perhaps the most extreme and painful death imaginable.

Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants on Earth

2. Torture by rats

An equally terrifying torture was invented by the same inventive ancient Chinese. It is believed, however, that it was refined and apparently made truly nightmarish by none other than the leader of the Dutch Revolution of the 16th century, Diedrik Sonoy.

It was done like this: the victim was stripped naked, placed on a table and tied. Cages with hungry, infectious rats were placed on the martyr's chest and stomach. The cages had no bottom, that is, the rats simply ended up on the body of the victim, surrounded on all sides by the bars of the cage. Upper part the cages were filled with hot coals - this was done in order to excite the animals. Fleeing from the scorching heat, the rats gnawed passages in the body of the unfortunate man in order to escape to freedom.

Torture by rats

3. Iron Maiden

The instrument of this torture is considered a classic of the medieval Inquisition - everyone has probably seen it. Despite, however, complete reality"Iron Maiden", many researchers doubt that this terrible weapon was actually used for its intended purpose; perhaps it was only a means of intimidating "sinners". This is understandable, because this weapon appeared at the end of the Catholic Inquisition - at the end of the 18th century.

The Iron Maiden is a metal or wooden sarcophagus with sharp spikes inside. The victim was locked in such a sarcophagus, but she could not die a quick death, since the spikes were not long enough to touch vital important organs, and are long enough to simply pierce her body, causing incredible suffering. Some versions of the iron maidens included spikes at eye level; there is no need to talk about what consequences this led to.

Iron Maiden

4. Torture by insects

This torture is also called scaphism. "Scaphium" means "trough" in Greek. It is believed that scaphism was popular in ancient Persia. The victim was placed in a shallow trough and wrapped in chains so that she could not move. Then they force-fed large quantities of honey and milk, which caused the martyr to develop diarrhea, and very quickly he found himself in a puddle of his own feces. To be extra safe, the victim was also coated with honey. In this form, the martyr was allowed to float through the swamp in a trough. But this would not be so bad, the whole point is that feces, like the smell of honey, attract blood-sucking insects, so the unfortunate person found himself literally covered with them in a matter of minutes. Needless to say, he was eaten alive.

Scaphism as imagined by the artist

5. Copper Bull

The ancient Greeks invented the instrument of this torture. It was nothing more than a copper statue of a bull, hollow from the inside in order to place the victim into it (through a special door). Then the bull was closed, and a fire was lit under its belly - the captive was roasted alive, and through the hole in the bull's mouth the heartbreaking cries of the unfortunate man were heard, resonating in the hollow statue so that they were very reminiscent of a bull's roar. They say that the bones of the burned corpses were subsequently used to make jewelry and sell them in the bazaars.

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.

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. Copper bull

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

5. Torture by rats

Torture by rats was very popular in ancient China. However, we will look at the rat punishment technique developed by the 16th century Dutch Revolution leader Diedric 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.

6. 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. In this case, 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 arms turned out. 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.

8. Shiri (camel cap)

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, 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 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 was found alive, then 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.

9. 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.

10. 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 stabbed with sharp objects;
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.

11. Polledro

Neapolitan executioners lovingly called this torture “polledro” - “foal” 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 would 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.

One of the medieval tortures used in modern Chinese prisons is the wearing of a wooden collar. It is placed on a prisoner, causing him to be unable to walk or stand normally.

The clamp is a board from 50 to 80 cm in length, from 30 to 50 cm in width and 10-15 cm in thickness. In the middle of the clamp there are two holes for the legs. The victim, who is wearing a collar, has difficulty moving, must crawl into bed and usually must sit or lie down, as the upright position causes pain and leads to injury to the legs. Without assistance, a person with a collar cannot go to eat or go to the toilet. When a person gets out of bed, the collar not only puts pressure on the legs and heels, causing pain, but its edge clings to the bed and prevents the person from returning to it. At night the prisoner is unable to turn around, and in winter the short blanket does not cover his legs.

An even worse form of this torture is called “crawling with a wooden clamp.” The guards put a collar on the man and order him to crawl on the concrete floor. If he stops, he is hit on the back with a police baton. An hour later, his fingers, toenails and knees are bleeding profusely, while his back is covered in wounds from the blows.

13. Spanish water torture

In order to best carry out the procedure of this torture, the accused was placed on one of the types of racks or on a special large table with a 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 to swallow a large amount of water using a funnel, then hitting the distended and arched abdomen. 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 cold water torture was used. In this case, the accused lay naked on a table under a stream of ice water for hours. It is interesting to note that this type of torture was considered light and confessions obtained in this way were accepted by the court 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.

14. Chinese water torture

They sat a man in a very cold room, tied him so that he could not move his head, and in complete darkness cold water was very slowly dripped onto his forehead. After a few days the person froze or went crazy.

15. Spanish armchair

16. Pectoral

In ancient times, a pectoral was a female breast decoration in the form of a pair of carved gold or silver bowls, often sprinkled with precious stones. It was worn like a modern bra and secured with chains.

In a mocking analogy with this decoration, the savage instrument of torture used by the Venetian Inquisition was named.

In 1985, the pectoral was heated red-hot and, taking it with tongs, they put it on the tortured woman’s chest and held it until she confessed. If the accused persisted, the executioners heated up the pectoral again cooled by the living body and continued the interrogation. Very often, after this barbaric torture, charred, torn holes were left in place of the woman’s breasts.

17. Tickle torture

At the most simple version torture: sensitive areas were tickled by the interrogated, either simply with their hands, or with hair brushes or brushes. Stiff bird feathers were popular. Usually they tickled under the arms and heels. In addition, torture was often carried out using animals that licked some tasty substance from the heels of the interrogated person. The goat was very often used, since its very hard tongue, adapted for eating grass, caused very strong irritation.

There was also a type of tickling torture using a beetle, most common in India. With it, a small bug was placed on the head of a man's penis or on a woman's nipple and covered with half a nut shell. After some time, the tickling caused by the movement of insect legs on a living body became so unbearable that the interrogated person confessed to anything

18. Bloody Eagle

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.

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 the 16th century Dutch Revolution leader Diedric 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, due to 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) 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?

2. Ligaments in the victim’s arms and legs are stretched and torn, bones pop out of their joints.

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.

Chinese bamboo torture. Impalement

2. Torture by rats

3. Iron Maiden

4. Torture by insects

5. Copper Bull

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