The most terrible torture in the history of mankind (21 photos). The most terrible torture (21 photos)

Impalement is one of the most cruel types of execution that humanity has thought of. This savage reprisal has been known since ancient times, and was practiced almost everywhere in Asia and in some European countries until modern times. Depending on the era and region, there were features of this procedure.

Option one.

It was practiced in Assyria and other states of the ancient East. A person was put on a sharply sharpened stake with their stomach or chest, and he died from blood loss even before the tip of the stake got through it. chest up to the armpit. This slow execution was applied to the inhabitants of the rebellious cities. Assyrian and Egyptian bas-reliefs are replete with images of people impaled on a stake.

Option two.

It was used in Byzantium, in European countries, for example, in the Commonwealth, where the insurgent Cossacks were dealt with in this way, as well as in Russia, where the rebels were traditionally subjected to this punishment. Happened cruel execution so: the condemned was laid face down on the ground. The executioner's henchmen firmly held him by the arms and legs, and the executioner drove a sharply sharpened stake to the unfortunate man into the anus. Sometimes for this, incisions had to be made on the body of the convict. Having driven a stake 40-50 centimeters, it was lifted, together with a man impaled on it, and placed vertically. Further, the participation of the executioner was no longer required. Under its own weight, the body of the convict slowly sank lower and lower, and the stake entered deeper and deeper, tearing the organs of the executed person. The unfortunate man was dying of blood loss, peritonitis and painful shock. Sometimes the suffering lasted more than a day. If they wanted to prolong the flour, then a special crossbar was made on the stake, which did not allow the edge to reach the heart and thereby end the suffering of the convict. In Russia, the executioner's skill was considered if the tip of the stake came out through the throat.

Option three.

It is typical for the countries of the East. Everything happens in exactly the same way as in the second case, with the only difference that the instrument of execution is not a sharply sharpened stake, but, on the contrary, a stake with a thin rounded top. This top of the stake, as well as the anus, were oiled. In this case, the stake penetrated deeply into the body, not tearing, but moving apart the internal organs. The suffering of the convict with this method of execution lasts much longer, since there is no profuse bleeding. According to the descriptions of Europeans who saw such executions in the countries of the East, sometimes a person showed signs of life on the fourth or fifth day of the execution.

Regional features.

However, human sophistication was not limited to these three types of execution. In some countries and regions, impinging was local. So, for example, the Zulus in South Africa they executed warriors who showed themselves to be cowards, and witches in this way: they put the guilty person on all fours and beat him into anus stick or even several. After that, the convict was thrown into the savannah to die of blood loss. In Sweden in the 17th century, rebels from the Danish provinces were also impaled on a stake, but they did not stick it into the anus, but between the spine and the skin, making incisions on the body. The convicts slowly crawled lower and lower, bleeding, and their torment could last for several days. The famous Romanian ruler Vlad Tepes, who became the prototype of Dracula, often used this execution, and was very creative about it. He put women on, piercing them not the anus, but the vagina. In this case, the tip of the stake pierced the uterus, and the victim died of bleeding quickly enough, within a few hours. In China, they impaled it in this way: a hollow bamboo trunk was inserted into the convict's anus, and then a red-hot rod was stuck.

The institute of law and the institute of punishment accompanying it contributed to the formation of a whole professional subculture of “back-up craftsmen”. The contribution of these "professionals of suffering" to the treasury of human abominations cannot be overestimated. Wheeling, rack, impalement, Spanish boot, quartering (only a small part of the list of executions and tortures) - all this is not a feverish attack of inflamed devilish fantasy, but the fruits of an inquisitive human mind... Man is truly a unique creature. He spent a significant part of his intellectual and spiritual capabilities on the invention of the maximum effective ways murders and bullying of their own kind.

An excursion into history: how they were impaled under Peter I

“According to the testimony of contemporaries, this is exactly how Peter I dealt with Stepan Glebov, the lover of his wife Evdokia, who was exiled to the monastery. On March 15, 1718, exhausted by torture, Glebov was brought to Red Square, filled with crowds of people. Peter arrived in a heated carriage. Glebov was put on an unplanned "Persian stake".

The condemned was placed with his back to the post, his arms were brought back and tightly tied behind his back. Then they put him on a stake, or rather on planks. At the same time, the stake did not enter deeply, but the depth of further penetration was regulated, gradually reducing the height of the support posts. The executioners made sure that the stake, entering the body, did not affect the vital centers.

According to Peter's personal instructions, so that the martyr would not die of frostbite, he was not put on a fur coat and a hat. Glebov suffered for fifteen hours, filling the square with inhuman screams. He died only at six o'clock the next morning. " (Gitin VG This is a cruel animal man. M. 2002) The "masters" of the enlightened West did not lag behind their colleagues from the "wild Muscovy", as evidenced by the following example.

Quartering in French

The description here is about the last hours of a man executed in 1757 on charges of conspiracy to assassinate the King of France. According to the sentence of the unfortunate man, the meat on the chest, arms and legs was pulled out, and the wounds were poured with a mixture of boiling oil, wax and sulfur. Then he was quartered with the help of horses, and the dismembered remains were burned.

The guard officer drew up the following account of the incident: “The executioner plunged the shackles into a cauldron of boiling potion, which he generously poured over every wound. Then they harnessed the horses and tied them by the arms and legs. The horses pulled hard in different sides... A quarter of an hour later, the procedure was repeated and the horses were changed: those that were at the feet were placed in the hands to break the joints. Everything was repeated several times.

After two or three attempts, the executioner Samson and his assistant, who held the pliers, took out knives and cut the body at the thighs, and pulled the horses again; then they did the same with the arms and shoulders; the meat was cut almost to the bone. The horses tensed with all their might and tore off first the right, then left hand... The victim was alive until the moment when her limbs were finally cut off from her body ”/ Foucoult Michel. Discipline and Panish. Harmondsworht, 1979 /

Reading the description of medieval executions, it is difficult to believe that they took place with large crowds of people eagerly listening to what was happening. Such executions were big events and served as a form of mass entertainment.

"Sallic truth"

Interestingly, already in early middle ages there is a tendency to use money as a universal exchange equivalent - even in legal relationship... Indicative in this respect is the "Sallic truth", the action of which falls on the IY-YIII centuries AD, when the barbarization of the Roman Empire took place, accompanied by the defeat of "everything and everyone." As historians note, cruelty and aggression reached the point of frenzy.

This can be judged by the following excerpts from the law that was in force at that time: “Whoever rips out another hand, leg, eye or nose pays 100 solidi, but if the hand is still hanging, then only 63 solidi. Torn off thumb pays 50 solidi, but if the finger remains hanging, then only 30 ". And everything is in the same spirit. In particular, for forefinger it was necessary to pay 5 solidi more than for the rest, because it is necessary for archery.

Of course, the expediency that the legislator wanted to introduce into this norm fades in our eyes before the alleged forms of its violation. But this, again, is one of the first steps towards the emergence of rational Western law in its modern version in the future. Over time, corrective crime control practices have spread in most Western societies. The first prisons were created, which later developed into penitentiary systems.

Fleet Prison

In the 12th century, two prisons were built in London, the very mention of which struck terror into the hearts of not only criminals, but also debtors ... Erected in 1130, the Fleet prison has been famous for corruption ever since. The post of the guardian was inherited and retained by one of the families for over three hundred and fifty years.

In the Middle Ages, people imprisoned for religious reasons languished in "Fleet" - often such criminals were branded with a red-hot iron, their nostrils were mutilated and their ears cut off. The prison's torture instruments included a finger vise and an iron collar, causing fatal suffocation in the unfortunate.

Prison has always been a desirable target for rioters and revolutionaries. In the past centuries, "Fleet" was burned to the ground and rebuilt three times. Conditions in it were so deplorable that, judging by the testimony of Moses Peet, dating back to the last decade of the 17th century, "Lice could be removed directly from the clothes of dozens of prisoners huddled in the cell."

For punishments, a dungeon called "safe" was also used. There was no fireplace or stove in this cell of unplastered brick, and the light came only through a gap above the door. The dungeon was damp and fetid and, as a rule, was located near a mountain, which was brought from the whole prison to one place of sewage. Usually in the "safe" were along with the living and the dead awaiting burial.

In 1729, the then warden was tried for murder after six prisoners died as a result of inhuman conditions, but he was acquitted as a result. Fleet prison was demolished in 1846.

Russian prisons of the last century

TO late XIX century in Russia, there were 895 prisons. As of January 1, 1900, they contained 90,141 people.

The Englishman Vening examined the St. Petersburg, Moscow and Tver prisons in 1819. Here are his impressions: “... The two low-lying rooms were damp and unhealthy; in the first, they prepared food and placed women, who, although they were fenced off, were in full view of all passers-by; there were no beds or beds in them, and women slept on laid boards; in another room there were 26 men and 4 boys, three of them were in wooden blocks; up to 100 people were kept in this room, who had nowhere to lie down either day or night. The room for the upper-class convicts was almost in the ground; you could get into it through a puddle, this room should give rise to diseases and premature death. "

Execution in Russia has long been, sophisticated and painful. Historians to this day have not come to a consensus about the reasons for the appearance death penalty.

Some are inclined to the version of the continuation of the custom of blood feud, while others prefer Byzantine influence. How did they deal with those who transgressed the law in Russia? Drowning This type of execution was very common in Kievan Rus... Usually it was used in cases where it was required to deal with big amount criminals. But there were also isolated cases. For example, Kiev prince Rostislav somehow got angry at Gregory the Wonderworker. He ordered to tie the recalcitrant hands, to throw a rope loop around his neck, at the other end of which a weighty stone was fixed, and throw him into the water. Executed by drowning in Ancient Rus and apostates, that is, Christians. They were sewn into a sack and thrown into the water. Usually such executions took place after battles, during which many prisoners appeared. Execution by drowning, in contrast to execution by burning, was considered the most shameful for Christians. Interestingly, centuries later, the Bolsheviks in the course Civil war drowning was used as a reprisal against the families of the "bourgeois", while the convicts were tied with their hands and thrown into the water.

Burning Since the 13th century, this type of execution was usually applied to those who violated church laws - for blasphemy against God, for displeasing sermons, for witchcraft. She was especially fond of Ivan the Terrible, who, by the way, was very inventive in methods of execution. So, for example, he came up with the idea of ​​stitching the guilty ones into bear skins and giving them up to be torn apart by dogs or ripping off the skin from a living person. In the era of Peter, execution by burning was used in relation to counterfeiters. By the way, they were punished in one more way - molten lead or tin was poured into their mouths. Burial Burying alive in the ground was usually applied to male killers. Most often, a woman was buried up to her throat, less often - only up to her chest. Such a scene is excellently described by Tolstoy in his novel Peter the Great. Usually the place for execution was a crowded place - central square or city market. Next to the still living executed criminal, a sentry was posted, who prevented any attempts to show compassion, to give the woman water or some bread. It was not forbidden, however, to express their contempt or hatred for the criminal - to spit on the head or even kick her. And those who wished could donate alms to the coffin and church candles... Usually painful death came on 3-4 days, but history recorded a case when a certain Euphrosyne, buried on August 21, died only on September 22. Quartering During quartering, the condemned were cut off their legs, then their arms, and only then their head. This is how Stepan Razin, for example, was executed. It was planned to take the life of Emelyan Pugachev in the same way, but he was first beheaded, and only then deprived of his limbs. From the examples given, it is easy to guess that this type of execution was used for insulting the king, for an attempt on his life, for treason and for imposture. It is worth noting that, unlike the Central European, for example, the Parisian crowd, which perceived the execution as a spectacle and dismantled the gallows for souvenirs, the Russian people treated the sentenced with compassion and mercy.

So, during the execution of Razin, there was a deathly silence on the square, broken only by rare female sobs. At the end of the procedure, people usually dispersed in silence. Boiling Boiling in oil, water or wine was especially popular in Russia during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The sentenced person was put into a cauldron filled with liquid. Hands were threaded into special rings mounted in the cauldron. Then the cauldron was put on fire and began to warm up slowly. As a result, the man was boiled alive. Such an execution was applied in Russia to state traitors. However, this view looks humane in comparison with the execution called "Walking in a circle" - one of the most cruel methods used in Russia. The condemned had his stomach ripped open in the intestines, but so that he would not die too quickly from loss of blood. Then they removed the intestine, nailed one end of it to a tree and forced the executed to walk around the tree in a circle. Wheeling Wheeling became widespread in the era of Peter. The condemned was tied to the log Andreevsky cross fixed on the scaffold. Notches were made on the rays of the cross. The offender was stretched face up on the cross in such a way that each of his limbs lay on the beams, and the places where the limbs were bent were on the grooves. The executioner struck one blow after another with a quadrangular iron crowbar, gradually breaking bones at the bends of his arms and legs.

The work of crying ended with two or three precise blows to the stomach, with the help of which the ridge was broken. The body of the broken criminal was connected so that the heels converged with the back of the head, laid on a horizontal wheel and in this position left to die. Last time such an execution was applied in Russia to the participants in the Pugachev riot. Impaling Similar to quartering, impaling was usually applied to rioters or traitors to thieves. So Zarutsky, an accomplice of Marina Mnishek, was executed in 1614. During the execution, the executioner drove a stake into the human body with a hammer, then the stake was placed vertically. Executed gradually under the weight own body began to slide down. After a few hours, the stake came out through his chest or neck. Sometimes a crossbar was made on the stake, which stopped the movement of the body, not allowing the stake to reach the heart. This method significantly prolonged the time of painful death. Impalement until the 18th century was a very common form of execution among the Zaporozhye Cossacks. Smaller colas were used to punish rapists - they drove a stake in their hearts, as well as against mothers who had infanticides.

... This kind of execution, especially popular in the East and Asia, was used everywhere: in Africa, Central America and even in Europe, in the Slavic countries and the Germanic Charles the Fifth, where the Carolina code provided for impaling for mothers guilty of infanticide. In Russia, they impaled until mid XVIII century. In the 19th century, impalement was still practiced in Siam, Persia and Turkey, where in the 1930s this type of execution was carried out publicly.

In the Law of Manu, the ancient collection of religious and civil laws of Indian society, impaling was the first among the seven types of capital punishment. Assyrian rulers became famous for condemning the rebels and the vanquished to death on a stake. Ashurnasirpal, mentioned by Gaston Maspero, wrote: “I hung the corpses on the pillars. Some I planted on the top of the pillar [...], and the rest on stakes around the pillar. "
The Persians also had a special affection for this form of the death penalty. Xerxes, enraged by the rebelliousness of King Leonidas, who with three hundred Spartans tried to block the path of the Persian army in Thermopylae, ordered the Greek hero to be impaled.
The planting technique was almost identical around the world, with the exception of a few details. Some peoples, including the Assyrians, introduced the stake through the stomach and removed it through the armpit or mouth, but this practice was not widespread, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, a wooden or metal stake was inserted through the anus.
The sentenced person was laid on his stomach on the ground. They spread their legs and either fixed them motionless, or they were held by the executioners, their hands were nailed to the ground with spears, or tied behind their backs.
In some cases, depending on the diameter of the stake, the anus was pre-oiled or cut with a knife. The executioner with both hands stuck the stake as deep as he could, and then drove it deeper with the help of a club.
Here a wide scope for fantasy opened up. Sometimes it was specified in codes or sentences that a stake introduced into the body by 50-60 cm should be placed vertically in a previously prepared hole. Death came extremely slowly, and the sentenced person experienced indescribable torment. The subtlety of torture was that the execution was carried out by itself and no longer required the intervention of the executioner. The stake penetrated deeper and deeper into the victim under the influence of its weight, until it finally crawled out of the armpit, chest, back or abdomen, depending on the given direction. Sometimes death came after a few days. Cases where agony lasted longer three days, it was enough.
It is known for sure that a stake inserted into the anus and exited the abdomen killed more slowly than one exiting the chest or throat.
Often, the stake was driven in with a hammer, piercing the body through and through, the task of the executioner in in this case was to get it out of the mouth. In addition to the physical characteristics of the condemned, the duration of the agony depended on the type of stake.
In some cases, the stake inserted through the anus was well pointed. Then death came quickly, as he easily ruptured organs, causing internal injuries and lethal bleeding. Russians usually aimed at the heart, which was not always possible. Many historians say that one boyar, impaled by the order of Ivan IV, suffered for 2 whole days. The lover of Queen Eudokia, after twelve hours spent on the stake, spat in the face of Peter I.
Persians, Chinese, Burmese and Siamans preferred a thin cola with a rounded end that caused minimal damage to a pointed cola. internal organs... He did not pierce or break them, but pushed them apart and pushed aside, penetrating deep into them. Death remained inevitable, but the execution could last several days, which from the point of view of edification was very useful.
On a stake with a rounded tip, Suleiman Xabi was executed in 1800 for stabbing General Kleber, the commander-in-chief of the French troops in Egypt after Bonaparte's sailing to France, with a knife.
Perhaps this was the only case in history when Western jurisprudence resorted to this method of execution. The French military commission departed from the military code in favor of the country's customs. The execution took place with a large crowd of people on the esplanade of the Cairo Institute with the participation of the French executioner Barthélemy, for whom this was the first experience of this kind. He coped with the task relatively successfully: before starting to hammer an iron stake with a hammer, he considered it necessary to cut the anus with a knife. Suleiman Habi struggled in agony for four hours.
The Chinese method of impaling, as always, was distinguished by its special sophistication: a bamboo tube was driven into the anus, through which an iron rod heated on a fire was inserted inside.
By the way, this is how they executed English king Edward II to pass off his death as a natural one. A hot rod was inserted into his body through a hollow horn. Michelet writes in the History of France: "The corpse was put on public display ... There was not a single wound on the body, but people heard screams and it was clear from the monarch's face depicted in torment that the murderers had subjected him to terrible torture."
In the East, this method of execution was often used for intimidation, impaling captives at the walls of a besieged city in order to sow terror in the souls of the townspeople.
Turkish troops were especially famous for such acts of intimidation. For example, this is how they acted at the walls of Bucharest and Vienna.
As a result of the uprising in Morocco around the middle of the 18th century, the Bukharians, the famous "black guard", consisted of blacks bought in Sudan, several thousand men, women and children were impaled on a stake.
In those same years, in Dahomey, girls were sacrificed to the gods, planting them with a vagina on pointed masts.
In Europe, impaling was popular during the religious wars especially in Italy. Jean Leger writes that in 1669 in Piedmont, the daughter of a notable, Anne Charbonneau de la Tour, was planted with a "causal place" on a peak, and a squadron of executioners passed her through the city, chanting that it was their flag, which they would eventually stick into the ground at the intersection roads.
During the war in Spain, Napoleonic troops impaled Spanish patriots, who paid them the same. Goya captured these gruesome scenes in prints and drawings.
In 1816, after a riot that ended in the murder of more than 15 thousand people, Sultan Mahmud II eliminated the Janissary corps. Many were beheaded, but most were staked.
Roland Villene writes that in 1958 the uncle of the Iraqi king, known for his homosexual inclinations, "was impaled so that punishment would overtake him through the place of his sin."

In the photo: By order of the People's Commissar, soldiers of the Red Army hanged the Polish captain Razhnsky on a stake, 1917

History

Ancient world

Impaling was widely used in ancient Egypt and the Middle East. The first mentions date back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. NS. Execution was especially widespread in Assyria, where impalement was a common punishment for residents of rebellious cities, therefore, for educational purposes, the scenes of this execution were often depicted on bas-reliefs. This execution was used according to Assyrian law and as a punishment for women for abortion (considered as a variant of infanticide), as well as for a number of especially serious crimes. On Assyrian reliefs, there are 2 options: with one of them, the condemned was pierced with a stake with a stake, with the other, the tip of the stake entered the body from below, through the anus. Execution was widely used in the Mediterranean and the Middle East at least from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. NS. It was also known to the Romans, although it did not receive much distribution in ancient Rome.

Middle Ages

Impalement in Romanian Chronicles

For much of medieval history execution by impalement was very common in the Middle East, where it was one of the main methods of the painful death penalty.

Impalement was fairly common in Byzantium, for example Belisarius suppressed soldiers' revolts by impaling instigators.

According to a widespread legend, the Romanian ruler Vlad Tsepes (Romanian Vlad Ţepeş - Vlad Dracula, Vlad the Kolosazhatel, Vlad Kololyub, Vlad the Impaler) distinguished himself with particular cruelty. At his direction, the victims were pushed onto a thick stake, the top of which was rounded and oiled. The stake was inserted into the vagina (the victim died practically within a few minutes from an abundant uterine bleeding) or anus (death occurred from a ruptured rectum and developed peritonitis, a person died in terrible agony for several days) to a depth of several tens of centimeters, then the stake was installed vertically. The victim, under the influence of the weight of his body, slowly slid down the stake, and sometimes death occurred only after a few days, since the rounded stake did not pierce the vital organs, but only entered deeper and deeper into the body. In some cases, a horizontal bar was installed on the stake, which prevented the body from sliding too low, and ensured that the stake did not reach the heart and other important organs. In this case, death from blood loss did not occur very soon. The usual execution was also very painful, and the victims writhed on a stake for several hours.

The Legend of Dracula the Warlord:

Europeans sometimes perceived the bloodthirsty sophistication of the Wallachian governor as some kind of oriental exoticism, inappropriate in a "civilized" state. For example, when John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, probably having heard enough during his diplomatic service at the papal court about effective "draculistic" methods, began to impale Lincolnshire rebels in 1470, he himself was executed for - as the verdict said - acts "contrary to the laws of the given country ".

New time

Nevertheless, impalement was sometimes used in European countries. In 17th century Sweden, it was used for mass executions of members of the resistance in the former Danish provinces in the south of the country (Scania). As a rule, the Swedes stuck a stake between the spine and the victim's skin, and the torment could last up to four to five days until death occurred.

According to the testimony of contemporaries of Peter I, in particular the Austrian envoy Player, it was in this way that he dealt with Russian emperor with Stepan Glebov, the lover of his wife Evdokia, who was exiled to the monastery.

A similar execution was very popular in South Africa. The Zulu used execution for warriors who failed in their assignments or showed cowardice, as well as for witches whose spells threatened the ruler and fellow tribesmen. In the Zulu version of the execution, the victim was put on all fours and then several sticks 30-40 cm long were hammered into her anus. After that, the victim was left to die in the savannah.

Notes (edit)

Literature

• // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.

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