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 in late XVII I century, i.e., 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) An instrument consisting of pointed, pear-shaped leaf-shaped segments is inserted into the client's desired body opening;
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 the 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 cold water torture was used. 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 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 a 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 subsequent refusal to answer it, as required, was 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)

Main types of executions

The death penalty at all times performed and performs the function of prevention, that is, the general prevention of the commission of crimes. At the same time, the main deterrent role is played by the criminal's fear of punishment, which is likely to follow the crime. Knowing this, the ancient rulers sought to make the execution the most painful and frightening. At various stages of human history, both simple types of the death penalty (hanging, beheading, shooting) were used, as well as qualified, that is, more cruel ones, appointed for especially dangerous crimes. The well-known Russian lawyer and jurist Alexander Fedorovich Kistyakovsky, in his “Study on the Death Penalty”, cites such methods of killing that were common in the past, such as hanging, wheeling, stoning, skinning, hanging by the rib, impalement, pouring red-hot lead into the throat, burning, boiling in oil, wine, water, tearing or cutting into small pieces, drowning, throwing from a tower, from a hill into the sea, into an abyss, crucifixion, giving to wild animals to be eaten, guts pulled out, trampled by an elephant, burning in the womb red-hot metal bull, burying alive in the ground, cutting off breasts and others (1: 272). Some other cruel types of executions are also known. So, in ancient China, one of the varieties of execution was the bleeding of a naked person tied to a pole by mosquitoes, horseflies and other insects. A Chinese parable is known, when a monk, seeing a criminal executed in this way, out of pity began to drive away blood-sucking insects from him. Feeling this, the unfortunate man opened his eyes, raised his head and spat in the face of the monk. When asked by the monk why, instead of gratitude, he spits in his face, the man replied that now, instead of already satiated insects, new, hungry and angry ones will fly in, and this will only increase his torment.

The Roman emperor Tiberius practiced the following type of execution: having drunk the unfortunate drunk with wine, they, intoxicated and helpless, bandaged their members, and they were exhausted and died from urinary retention. Another emperor, Caligula, ordered to saw through living people with a saw. (There were cases of such an execution during the uprising of peasants in the Tambov region in the 20s of the last century.) Emperor Makrin immured living people into the wall as an execution (2: 128).

The Russian rulers - Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great - impaled their opponents. One of the types of executions that survived from ancient times until the 20th century was execution by lot - decimation (from Latin decimatio, from decimus - “tenth”). Decimation was used as the ultimate punishment in the Roman army for the loss of a banner, rebellion, and even desertion. The earliest documented instance of its use dates back to 471 BC. e. During decimation, the punished unit was divided into dozens, regardless of rank and length of service. Each ten cast lots, and the one on whom it fell was executed by his own nine comrades, sometimes by stoning or clubs. The surviving soldiers were also punished: in their diet, wheat was replaced by barley, they were forbidden to sleep inside the camp, etc. (3: "Krass", X). Decimation as a possible punishment is also spelled out in the Military Regulations of Peter I - “Military Article”, which imposes punishments for military crimes. In Russia, decimation was also used during the Civil War by People's Commissar Lev Trotsky (Bronstein Leiba Davidovich). So, on August 29, 1918, the 2nd Petrograd Regiment near Kazan was defeated by Kappel, left their positions and fled. On Trotsky's orders, regimental commissar Panteleev, commander Gneushev, and every tenth Red Army soldier were shot. The corpses of the executed were thrown into the Volga and, to be sure, they were ironed with boat propellers. The next day, in the morning, the inhabitants of Sviyazhsk fished out several mutilated bodies. These were Petrograd workers - printers, not even trained in the basics of military affairs. The unfortunate were buried by the monks at the monastery cemetery of the Dormition Monastery (4: Ch. 4). During the defense of Petrograd in October 1919, every tenth Red Army soldier was also shot in the retreating Red Army units. Other units of the Red Army were also subjected to decimation (for example, on the Khabarovsk Front on December 26, 1921 and January 5, 1922). In Finland, during the Civil War at the beginning of 1918, there was a case of using decimation on captured Red Guards by the White Finns, who shot all the commanders and every fifth ordinary soldier. This incident is known as the "Khuruslahti Lottery" after the name of the river on whose ice the execution was carried out (5: 316).

The most common types of executions in the ancient world and in the Middle Ages were beheading, hanging, crucifixion and burning. Decapitation was perhaps the most common method of deprivation of life in human history. It was widely used in the states of the Ancient East, in the Ottoman Empire, in Ancient Rome and in medieval Europe. In this way, the English kings Richard II and Charles I, the Scottish Queen Mary Stuart, the French king Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette were executed. Currently, beheading is used only in Saudi Arabia, and as a method of deprivation of life is legally established in the Yemen Arab Republic and the United Arab Emirates.

Until the middle of the 16th century, the main tools for carrying out executions were an ax and a sword, but with an increase in the number of executions, this technology did not meet the requirements of the time. The execution took a long time, and the "productivity" of the executioners was low - it also decreased due to the need to constantly sharpen blunted swords. An inaccurate blow by the executioner when cutting off the head from the body with a sword or an ax led to the torment of the executed. There were cases when an inexperienced executioner had to make up to ten blows to cut off his head. Therefore, in different countries attempts were made to mechanize the execution process. The first mechanical devices for decapitation appeared in Europe at the end of the 13th century. In Italy, such a device was called mannaya (mannaia; lit., "axe"). It is known that with his help, in 1268, the last representative of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, Conradin of Swabia, was executed in Naples. In the 14th century, a mechanism was invented in Germany that made it possible to drive a heavy and sharp iron ax into the neck of a convict with a hammer. In 1564, in Scotland and Ireland, they began to use a device for decapitation, which was called the "maiden" (maiden), or Scottish maiden. The working body of such a machine was a sharp knife weighing 30–40 kilograms. From the moment of its appearance and until the prohibition of its use in 1708, more than 150 people were executed on the Scottish Maiden. Devices like this machine were tried in the UK, Italy and Switzerland, but they were not widely used.

The reason for the further improvement of the execution machine was the mass terror during the French Revolution, which led to a shortage of executioners. Joseph Guillotin (Guillotin) (1738-1814) proposed to change the technology of execution of death sentences. Being elected to the Constituent Assembly, in December 1789 he proposed that the death penalty for all categories of citizens should be carried out only by decapitation and using a machine (before that, mostly nobles were executed by beheading). The aim of the proposal was for the execution to take place as quickly as possible and thus cause less suffering to those executed, and the application of one type of execution to criminals from all walks of life emphasized their equality before the law. Guillotin's proposal was accepted. At the suggestion of the surgeon Antoine Louis, it was decided to take the Scottish maiden as a prototype. The first guillotine was designed and built in early 1792 by engineer and harpsichord maker Tobias Schmidt. The head of the condemned was cut off by a heavy (from 40 to 100 kilograms) knife, falling from above along the guide grooves. The knife was raised to a height of 2-3 meters with a rope, where it was held by a latch. The sentenced was tied to a vertical board, which was then lowered to a horizontal position so that his neck was in the line of the knife's fall. His head was placed in a special recess at the base of the mechanism and fixed on top with a wooden board with a notch for the neck, after which the latch holding the knife opened with a lever mechanism, and it fell at high speed onto the victim's neck.

At the end of April 1792, after tests on animals and corpses, in Paris, on the Place Greve, the guillotine was first used as an execution tool. With a large gathering of people, the executioner Charles Henri Sanson executed the thief Nicolas Pelletier. The crowd of onlookers, accustomed since the Middle Ages to painful executions, was disappointed with the speed of the execution. The execution lasted only a few seconds, after which the executioner's henchmen pushed the decapitated body into a prepared box. Initially, the car was given the name “Louison” or “Louisette” (Louisop, Louistte; from A. Louis), but soon it was replaced with a “guillotine” (guіllоtіpe; from J.I. Guillotin); the people christened her "The Widow" (la Veuve). After testing, the guillotine worked at full capacity - during the mass terror, on some days, 60 or more people were executed on it. Soon it was transported from the Place de Greve and mounted on the Place de la Révolution (now Place de la Concorde), where most of the executions took place and where King Louis XVI was guillotined on January 21, 1793.

During the period of the Jacobin dictatorship (September 1793 - July 1794), the guillotine became a symbol of terror. In France at that time, 50 guillotines were “working”, with the help of which more than 20 thousand people were executed. During the execution, the executioner raised the severed head and showed it to the crowd. This was done because it was believed that the severed head could see and think for about ten seconds after it was separated from the body. Thus, the head of a person was raised so that at the last moment before death he could see the crowd laughing at him. Despite the odious reputation that the guillotine acquired during the era of revolutionary terror, it was used in France for almost two centuries. In 1870–1872 it was perfected by the executioner's assistant and carpenter Léon Berger. Berger's guillotines were collapsible, easily transported and did not require a special scaffold.

On the guillotine in France, among others, were executed Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, the representative of the royal dynasty Philippe d'Orleans, prominent figures and leaders of the revolution Georges Jacques Danton, Maximilian Robespierre, Georges Couthon, Louis Antoine Saint-Just, Camille Desmoulins and the founder of modern chemistry Antoine Lavoisier . In 1932, a Russian émigré, doctor and writer Pavel Gorgulov was executed by guillotine for the assassination of French President Paul Doumer. On June 17, 1939, in Versailles, on the boulevard, the German Eugen Weidmann, the murderer of seven people, was guillotined. This was the last public execution in France: due to the "obscene behavior of the crowd during the passing of sentences", further executions were carried out on the territory of the prisons. The last execution by guillotine and the last execution in Western Europe was in Marseille during the reign of Giscard d'Estaing on September 10, 1977, when the Arab Hamid Djandoubi was executed.

In Germany, the guillotine was used from the 17th century and was the main type of execution until its abolition in 1949. Unlike the French models, the German guillotine was lower and had a winch for lifting a heavy knife. Guillotines were installed in the prisons of Berlin (the famous Plötzensee prison), Leipzig and Brandenburg. Between 1933 and 1945, about 40,000 people were beheaded in Germany and Austria. This number also includes the resistance fighters, classified by the Nazis as criminals. Decapitation in Germany was considered an "ignoble" type of execution, as opposed to shooting. Among those executed by the Nazis on the guillotine were the Reichstag arsonist Marinus van der Lubbe, the Czechoslovak journalist and anti-fascist Julius Fucik, the Tatar poet Musa Jalil, and the Russian princess Vera Apollonovna Obolenskaya, a member of the Resistance in France. In the GDR, beheading was used until 1966, before being replaced by execution.

I.S. Turgenev, who observed the guillotining of the criminal Tropman in 1870, describes his impressions as follows: “Vaguely and more strange than scary, two pillars were drawn in the dark sky, 3 arshins apart from each other with an oblique line connecting them blades. For some reason I imagined that these pillars should be much further apart; this closeness of theirs gave the whole car a kind of ominous slenderness - the slenderness of a long, attentively stretched neck, like that of a swan. The feeling of disgust was aroused by a large wicker body, like a suitcase, of dark red color. I knew that the executioners would throw a warm, still shuddering corpse and a severed head into this body ... "

Turgenev says about the very moment of execution: “I saw how he (Tropman) appeared at the top, how two people rushed at him from the right and left, like spiders on a fly, when he suddenly fell head first and how his soles kicked ... But then I turned away - and began to wait - and the earth swam quietly under my feet ... And it seemed to me that I had been waiting for a terribly long time. I managed to notice that when Troppman appeared, the human din suddenly seemed to curl up into a ball - and there was a breathless silence ... Finally, a slight knock was heard, as if wood on wood - this was the upper semicircle of the collar with a longitudinal slit for the passage of the blade, which covers the neck of the criminal and holds him motionless head... Then something suddenly roared dully and rolled - and hooted... It was like a huge animal coughed up... Everything became cloudy...” (6: 84).

The Russian writer Pyotr Boborykin, recalling the executions in Paris in the second half of the 19th century, writes: “Those who lived in Paris for a long time, like me, know what kind of disgust it was: public executions that took place near the La Koqette prison. It was impossible to imagine anything more vile than this! Thousands of people, from secular weavers and first-class cocottes to rabble - pimps, street sluts, thieves and runaway convicts, spent the whole night in the surrounding taverns, drinking, singing obscene songs and at dawn rushed to the cordon of soldiers that surrounded the area where “les bois” rose de justice” (guillotines), as this disgusting apparatus is officially called. It was impossible to see well from a distance, but all this mass felt in admiration only because they “were at the execution”, so famously and cheerfully spent the night in anticipation of such a captivating spectacle” (7: 194).

Hanging was also a very common punishment, both in antiquity and in the Middle Ages. One of the earliest mentions of hanging is found in the Book of Numbers: “And the Lord said to Moses: Take all the leaders of the people and hang them to the Lord before the sun, and the fury of the wrath of the Lord will turn away from Israel” (Num. 25: 4).

The popularity of execution by hanging is evidenced by the fact that at the end of the 20th century it remained as the only type of execution in the legislation of such countries as Burma, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbud, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Botswana, Brunei Darussalam, United Kingdom, Virgin Islands, Guyana, Gambia, Hong Kong, Grenada, Dominica, Zambia, Western Samoa, Zimbabwe, Israel, Ireland, Cayman Islands, Kenya, Cyprus, Lesotho, Mauritius, Malawi, Malaysia, Montserrat, Namibia, New Zealand, Papua - New Guinea, Swaziland, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Singapore, Tanzania, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Fiji, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Jamaica, Japan ( 6:92). (It should be noted that most of these countries currently retain the death penalty in their legislation, but actually abandoned it.) Hanging was carried out in a variety of ways. At first they hung on trees; later - on poles, on specially built gallows, on the gates and towers of buildings. A special type of hanging was hanging on a cross with your head up or down. This method was widespread in the East, in Greece and Rome, where mainly slaves were executed in this way.

In medieval Russia, people were hanged on gallows specially built in city squares in the form of the letters T, G or P, or simply on trees along roads (this was applied to robbers). Sometimes the gallows were built on rafts. Thus, they dealt with the participants in riots and uprisings. Rafts with hanged men were floated down large rivers to intimidate the population. In India, criminals were hung on the banks of the Irrawaddy so that the water at high tide would slowly flood the convict.

According to A.F. Kistyakovsky, “in Germany, to aggravate the execution of criminals, especially from Jews, they hung them together with two dogs or two wolves; serious thieves were decorated before hanging in a ridiculous way: the harder the theft was, the higher the thief was hanged. Hanging in Europe was considered more serious and more inglorious than, for example, beheading. Therefore, it was an execution that punished criminals from the people. The criminals from the privileged classes were executed by decapitation. Women, instead of being hanged, were burned or fueled” (8: 38).

In ancient times and the Middle Ages, hanging became widespread due to the simplicity of organizing executions, and also due to the fact that public executions were, in fact, the only cultural, entertainment and educational event and attracted crowds of spectators. For intimidation, the death penalty was carried out in public, with solemn processions, in the center of the city, near churches and palaces, in the most crowded squares. To attract people to executions, they rang bells, as, for example, in Spain during the burning of heretics or in Russia during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, heralds were sent or trumpets were blown. Both in the East and in Europe, the main location of the gallows and scaffolds were city gates, streets and roads. There were gallows in every big city in Europe. Almost every seigneur had his own gallows.

In his History of Civilization in Europe, Guizot François notes that in the Middle Ages in Europe, gallows stood along the entire length of the roads and the torn members of the executed were lying around (9). This is also confirmed by the well-known Russian criminologist, Doctor of Law Sergey Ivanovich Barshev, who notes that “there was, one might say, not a single roadway in all of Europe where gallows were not constantly standing at that time” (10). The bodies of criminals were not removed from the gallows for years, so that they served as a constant reminder and turned the people away from crime.

Over time, the technology of hanging has been improved and developed. From executions on trees and on the simplest gallows, designed for 1-2 people, the rulers gradually switched to the construction of monumental structures. In the 13th century, northeast of Paris, in the possessions of a certain Count Falcon (Faucon), a huge stone gallows was built, which was called Moptfaucon (from French mont - mountain, facon - falcon). Up to 50 people could be hanged at Montfaucon at the same time. (On some engravings, you can see that two people could be hanged in one cell.) It is believed that the gallows was built according to the design of the adviser of Philip IV the Handsome - Enguerrand de Marigny. According to his plan, the terrible sight of the many decomposing bodies of the hanged was to make a strong impression on the subjects of the king and warn them against serious offenses. Ironically, de Marigny himself was subsequently hanged at Montfaucon.

According to the description of Victor Hugo in the novel "Notre Dame Cathedral" and contemporaries, the gallows was a square three-tiered structure on a high stone foundation. Its upper part was a platform on which were installed on three sides

16 massive quadrangular stone pillars 12 meters high. The pillars were connected by crossbars embedded in them, to which chains were attached, intended for hanging the condemned. Another row of crossbars, also designed for hanging, connected the posts in the middle. Hanging was carried out on three sides of the gallows. The fourth side was used for lifting and lowering bodies and was a stone staircase with a gate, the key to which was kept by the city executioners. The bodies of the hanged were left on the gallows until partial decomposition. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, from 50 to 60 dried up, disfigured and swaying corpses were constantly hanging on the gallows. Decayed corpses were dumped into a special stone well (ossuary), as it was forbidden to bury the hanged according to Christian custom. (The custom of not removing the corpses of the executed also existed among the Jews, the Romans and the Germans.) The last execution at Montfaucon was carried out in 1629, after which the gallows was not used for its intended purpose and by 1760 it completely collapsed.

In 1571, the famous Tyburn tree gallows was built in the village of Tyburn near London (the area of ​​\u200b\u200bmodern Hyde Park). It consisted of three massive supports connected in the form of a triangle by beams, on which 24 people could be hung at the same time. The gallows served for more than 200 years and was destroyed in 1783, when the square in front of Newgate Prison became the site of public executions. Traditional hanging, in which a support was knocked out from under a person, did not guarantee a quick and reliable death. To speed up the process of execution, various tricks were used: the executioners jumped on the shoulders of the victims or pulled them by the legs; in the time of Louis XIII, the executioner held his hands on the crossbar of the gallows and pressed his feet on the victim's bound hands.

Modern hanging technology, which is used by most countries that use this type of execution, was developed in 1949-1953. Royal Commission on the death penalty in the UK. According to this technology, “the convict is hung on a rope wrapped around his neck; death occurs as a result of the pressure of the rope on the body under the influence of gravity. Loss of consciousness and death occur as a result of damage to the spinal cord or, if this is not enough to cause death, due to asphyxia from compression of the trachea "(6). The commission proceeded from the "humane" need for "an early and painless death by displacement of the vertebrae without separating the head from the body." In accordance with the recommendations of the commission, after a noose was put on the convict's neck, a hatch opened under his feet. At the same time, the length of the rope (and, accordingly, the distance of the fall) was selected taking into account the height and weight of the convict in such a way as to achieve a rupture of the spinal cord without tearing off the head. However, with an incorrect calculation or inexperience of the executioner, the spinal cord did not break, and the convict died from suffocation. The English gallows has become a model of perfection. Neither the Germans with their execution on a string, nor the Soviet performers of the “highest measure of social protection”, who replaced the stool knocked out from under the feet of the criminal with a departing truck, could not surpass it.

"Leadership" in the number of hanged at the end of the last century belonged to Iran and the Republic of South Africa. In South Africa, 537 people were hanged between 1985 and the first half of 1988. In Iran, according to official figures, only in the second half of 1981 (from July to December) 2,444 people were executed, most of them by hanging. In Iran, public executions by hanging are still practiced today, with the booms of automobile cranes being used as gallows.

Strangulation was a form of hanging. It was used in ancient Greece and in ancient Rome. As an independent type of execution, it has been widely used in Spain since 1828, when Ferdinand VII abolished hanging and introduced strangulation as the only method of execution for criminals. The instrument of execution at the same time was the garrote (Spanish gaggot - twisting, tightening), which is a noose with a stick, twisting which the executioner killed the victim. Over time, the garrote was improved, and in its final form it was a metal collar with a screw at the back, which the executioner rotated by the handle. When tightening, the screw pulled back the ends of the collar, tightening it, and slowly squeezing the convict. This form of execution was excruciating and lasted up to 10 minutes. Before execution, the convict was tied to a pole, and a bag was put on his head. After the execution of the sentence, the bag was removed so that the audience could see the face of the victim.

Here is how Lion Feuchtwanger describes the execution of the robber Torres in the novel Goya: “The executioner dragged the convict onto the platform, forced him to sit on a wooden chair and tied him very firmly to a post. There was a case when one convict, having escaped, killed the executioner, who was about to execute him. Then he threw a black handkerchief over the condemned man's head and began to quickly tighten the garrotte screw. One could see how terribly the chest heaved and the knees of the panting man trembled. His bubbling wheeze reached the crowd. Finally, everything was quiet. The executioner quickly looked under the handkerchief, pulled it off and went to smoke a cigar. The audience saw a terrible blue face with a gaping, grinning mouth, a tongue protruding far, along which saliva, stained with blood, glassy eyes, and a disheveled beard flowed. Onlookers, laughing happily, pointed to each other at the pants of the executed man, raised in the groin, where a wet dark spot could be seen.

In the Catalan garrote, the screw was pointed and, gradually screwing into the neck or head of the convict, crushed his cervical vertebrae or damaged his brain. Garrote was also used for torture. Garrote strangulation was carried out in Spain until the abolition of the death penalty in this country in 1977. During the conquest of America, garrote became widespread in the Spanish colonies. With her help, the last emperor of the Inca Empire, Atahualpa, was executed. The garrote was also used in the United States before the invention of the electric chair by Edison.

Garrote is also called a weapon made of a strong cord 30–60 cm long with handles attached to its ends. At the beginning of the 20th century, such a garrote became widespread among members of criminal gangs in the United States, becoming the tool of professional killers from Cosa nostga. The killing with such a garrote is carried out either by gradual (within 2–4 minutes) squeezing of the neck with a cord, which leads to asphyxia, or by a sharp jerk of the cord thrown over the neck, resulting in a fracture of the cervical vertebrae.

Crucifixion as a type of execution was carried out on a T-shaped cross, however, executions are also known on crosses of a different shape: on two crossed beams and on a cross in the shape of an “X”. Sometimes a small protrusion was made in the lower part of the cross, on which the crucified could lean with his feet. Such a support facilitated the breathing of the executed, but increased his torment up to 5-6 days. To speed up the execution, the convicts were interrupted with a club of their shins, which deprived them of additional support. Often, the crucifixion was preceded by a procession, during which the condemned to death had to carry a patibulum, a wooden beam, which then served as the horizontal bar of the cross. Upon arrival at the place of the convict, they laid him on the ground and nailed his hands to the crossbar. Nails were driven not into the palms, but into the wrists, since the nails driven into the palms did not hold the body on the cross. Then, with the help of ropes, the executed was pulled up to the top of a pillar previously dug into the ground. Sometimes a person sentenced to death was nailed to the crossbar on a cross lying on the ground, and the cross with the body was lifted with ropes and fixed in a pre-dug hole. The main cause of death during crucifixion was asphyxia caused by developing pulmonary edema. Additional causes of death were dehydration and blood loss.

Crucifixion as an execution was known among the Jews, in Ancient Babylon, Greece, Palestine, Carthage. According to Christian doctrine, Jesus Christ was subjected to crucifixion, which made the cross a symbol of the Christian religion. The Christian holy apostles Andrew and Peter were also executed by crucifixion. In Jerusalem, in the Rockefeller Museum at the Shechem Gate, a terrible exhibit is exhibited: a leg bone with a rusty nail stuck in it. This find was made by archaeologist Vasilios Tzaferis in 1968 while excavating Mount Scopus in northern Jerusalem. Four caves were discovered in this area, which were family tombs, with the bones of people who died from violent death - from a sword, arrow and crucifixion. In many crypts the bones are well preserved. In total, 15 limestone crypts were discovered, in which the remains of 35 people were stored. According to the found clay objects, it was possible to establish that the burial dates back to the period between the end of the 2nd century BC and the end of the 2nd century BC. e. and 70 of the 1st century AD. e. One of the tombs contained the remains of an adult man and a child, which confirm the dramatic details of crucifixion technology in the time of Pontius Pilate. During the crucifixion, the man's heel bone was pierced with a nail about 17 centimeters long and both legs were deliberately broken (11:44–53).

According to Josephus Flavius, the Jewish king Alexander Yannai, after the capture of the rebellious city, took the soldiers taken captive from there to Jerusalem. Here he ordered about 800 captives to be crucified in the city square, among whom were many learned Pharisees, and while they were still alive, ordered to kill their wives and children in front of their eyes. Tradition adds that during these executions the king feasted merrily with his mistresses. This unheard-of cruelty inspired such panic fear in the opponents of the king that on the same night 8,000 of them fled from Judea and did not dare to return to their homeland before Yannai died (12: Ch. 14.2).

Execution by crucifixion was also widespread in ancient Rome, where it became the main type of execution for especially dangerous criminals. After the suppression of the Spartacus rebellion, all the captured slaves, about 6,000 people, were crucified along the Appian Way from Capua to Rome, where their remains hung on crosses for years. As a form of the death penalty, crucifixion still exists in the legislation of Sudan and Saudi Arabia. But before the crucifixion, the preliminary hanging of the condemned is performed, that is, the already dead body is crucified. In the 20th century, crucifixion was used by Chechen fighters in relation to Russian prisoners of war during the first Chechen war (13: Ch. 15).

Burning as a method of execution was used by almost all ancient eastern and western peoples. The Jews were burned for carnal crimes, the Romans - for political crimes, under the Caesars - for arson, witchcraft, sacrilege, parricide and lèse majesté. In the Middle Ages, burning in Europe was an uncontested type of execution for heretics, sorcerers and witches, as well as for crimes within the jurisdiction of church courts, such as blasphemy, sodomy, bestiality, adultery and others. Burning executed arsonists, as well as women sentenced to hanging for the murder of their husbands. Burning was especially widely used in Europe in the Middle Ages, when the Holy Inquisition chose this method of execution for its victims.

The ritual of the execution of the sentences of the Holy Inquisition is described by many contemporaries. Usually executions were carried out several times a year on holidays. The population was notified of executions a month in advance and encouraged to take part in them. The priests promised indulgences (liberation from sins) for forty days to those participating in the auto-da-fé. Avoidance of participation was seen as a sign of pity for the executed and could bring suspicion of heresy. The presence of women and children at executions was welcomed. On the eve of the execution, the city was decorated with flags and garlands of flowers, carpets were hung on the balconies, and a general rehearsal of the holiday was held. A solemn procession of parishioners, priests, personnel of the local Inquisition with its informants-fiscals in white robes, hiding their faces (relatives of the Inquisition) passed through the streets. The participants in the procession built a platform and a “brazier”, a place for the burning of the pretended, and decorated the place of execution.

The burning was preceded by an auto-da-fe - a solemn service, the announcement of the verdict and execution. The convicts were in prison and did not know about the fate they had prepared - the verdict was announced only at the auto-da-fé. The guards prepared them for the execution: they cut them, shaved them, dressed them in clean linen, fed them a hearty breakfast, sometimes they gave them a glass of wine for courage. Then they threw a rope loop around the neck and put a green candle into their tied hands. In this form, the convicts were taken out into the street, where the guards and "relatives" of the inquisitors were waiting for them. Particularly malicious heretics were planted backwards on donkeys and tied to animals. The prisoners were led to the cathedral, where the procession was formed. It was attended by the same persons as the day before - now they carried the standards of the parishes, drawn in black cloth as a sign of mourning. Fiscals carried mannequins depicting dead, escaped or uncaptured heretics condemned to the stake.

The procession, whose participants sang mourning church hymns, slowly headed for the square, where the auto-da-fé was to take place. The monks and "relatives" who accompanied the prisoners loudly urged them to repent and reconcile with the church. The townspeople watched the procession from the windows of houses or from the pavement. Following the instructions of the churchmen, many of them showered abuse on the prisoners, but it was forbidden to throw any objects at heretics, as priests, “relatives” and the staff of the Inquisition could suffer. Secular and spiritual authorities and guests gathered at the place where the auto-da-fé was performed, as well as the townspeople who filled the square. With the arrival of the procession, the prisoners were seated on the benches of shame, set up on a platform, somewhat lower than the honorary stands. After that, a funeral mass began, followed by a formidable sermon by the inquisitor, which ended with the announcement of sentences. The verdicts were read in Latin, and the prisoners had difficulty grasping their meaning; they were long, began with quotations from the Bible and from the works of the Church Fathers, and were read slowly. If there were many convicts, it sometimes took several hours to announce the verdicts. Auto-da-fe was crowned with executions: some convicts were clothed in san benito (a yellow shroud with a red cross - the clothes in which heretics were burned) and clownish caps, others were whipped with whips, the third guards and monks were dragged to the "brazier".

The “brazier” was located on the neighboring square, where, following the suicide bombers, church and secular leaders and ordinary citizens moved. At the "brazier" the convicts were tied to a pole and the scaffold was lined with firewood and brushwood. The monks and "relatives" who accompanied the suicide bombers tried at that last minute to extort renunciation from their victims. The convict could only give a sign of his desire to repent, because, fearing that he would agitate before the people in favor of heresy, he was often led to execution with a gag in his mouth. If the convict repented, then he was first strangled, after which the dead body was burned; if he persisted, he was burned alive. When the fire was lit, especially respected parishioners were given the honorable right to throw brushwood into the fire, thereby increasing their virtues before the church.

Although the executioners tried to maintain the fire so that the body of the convict burned completely, they did not always succeed. In most cases, the charred remains were torn into small pieces by the executioners, the bones were crushed, and this terrible mess was re-ignited. Then the ashes were carefully collected and thrown into the river. So the inquisitors tried to deprive the heretics of the opportunity to preserve the remains of their martyrs and worship them. If a person sentenced to burning died before execution, then his corpse was burned. The remains of those who were convicted posthumously were also burned after exhumation.

In the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition, it was customary to burn dolls depicting convicts at the stake (execution un efigie). Those sentenced to life imprisonment, as well as victims of the Inquisition who fled from prisons or from persecution, were subjected to such symbolic execution. The bonfire was also used by the Inquisition to destroy the writings of apostates, non-Christians and writers objectionable to the church.

In the manual for inquisitors (“Dіgestogіum іnquisіtоgum”), developed at the beginning of the 14th century by the chief inquisitor of the Kingdom of Aragon, Nicolae Eymeric, curious explanations are given about possible “judicial errors” and the responsibility of the Inquisition for them. Aymeric states: “If an innocent person is unjustly convicted, he should not complain about the decision of the church, which passed its sentence on the basis of sufficient evidence, and which cannot look into hearts, and if false witnesses contributed to his conviction, then he is obliged to accept the sentence with humility and rejoice in the fact that he had the opportunity to die for the truth. The question arises, Nicolae Eymeric continues to argue on the same topic, whether a believer slandered by a false witness, trying to escape the death sentence, has the right to confess to an imperfect crime, that is, to heresy, and cover himself as a result of such recognition with shame. First, the inquisitor explains, a man's reputation is an external good, and everyone is free to sacrifice it in order to avoid torture that brings suffering, or to save his life, which is the most precious of all goods; secondly, the loss of reputation does not harm anyone. If, however, the inquisitor concludes, such a convict refuses to “sacrifice his reputation” and plead guilty, then the confessor is obliged to urge him to meet torture and death with humility, for which he will be prepared in the next world for the “immortal crown of a martyr” (14: 336-352 ). Thus, from the reasoning of one of the leaders of the Inquisition, it follows that the "sacred" tribunal acted with the permission of God, and the Lord God himself bears ultimate responsibility for his actions. These arguments testify to the criminal morality of the inquisitors and their patrons, including the monarchs and heads of the church who led the inquisition. It was them, the vicars of God on earth, that this bloody machine, created by the church and existing with its blessing, served and obeyed. The activities of the “holy” Inquisition left a sinister imprint on the theory and practice of further legal proceedings, from which, under its influence, the rudiments of objectivity and impartiality disappeared.

As G. C. Lee rightly notes, until the end of the 18th century, in most countries of Europe, inquisitorial proceedings, the purpose of which was the destruction of heresy, became the usual method used against all the accused. In the eyes of the judge, the accused became a person outside the law, his guilt was always assumed, and it was necessary to extract a confession from him at all costs by cunning or force. However, in the 20th century in the USSR, the application of the principle “confession is the queen of evidence” led to tragic results, when confessions obtained under torture during the period of mass repressions of 1936–1938 were the basis for the imposition of death sentences (15).

According to the Spanish historian, Catholic priest and doctor of canon law Juan Antonio Llorente, the number of people persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition alone from 1481 to 1809 amounted to 341,021 people. Of these, 31,912 people were publicly burned, 17,659 people were burned in absentia (in effige), 291,460 were subjected to imprisonment and other punishments. Claiming that the given data on the number of executions is not complete, Llorente notes: “It would be impossible to determine exactly and reliably the number of victims that the Holy Tribunal killed in the first years from the time of its establishment. His fires began to glow in 1481; but the Supreme Council was created only in 1483. The registers of its archives and those of the subordinate tribunals date back to an even earlier era. If I added to the number of victims of the Inquisition of the peninsula all the unfortunates who were condemned by the tribunals of Mexico, Lima and Cartagena American, Sicily, Oran, Malta and sea galleys, their number would be truly incalculable ... It is impossible to determine the measure of so many misfortunes and misfortunes "(16: Chapter 66).

The scale of the actions of the executioners in cassocks is also characterized by the decision of the Holy Inquisition of February 16, 1568, when it condemned to death all the inhabitants of the Netherlands as heretics. “Only some persons, named by name, were excluded from the number of convicts. Philip II, by his proclamation, approved the verdict of the Inquisition and ordered its immediate execution, without distinction of sex, age and rank. This sentence, of course, was not carried out in full, nevertheless, the courts of Charles V executed, according to Sarpi, 50 thousand, and according to the calculation of Hugo Grotius, 100 thousand of the Netherlands, and the courts of Philip - 25 thousand. The Duke of Alba in one In a letter to the king, he calmly counts up to 800 heads scheduled for execution after Holy Week ”(8: Ch. 5).

The fires of the Inquisition burned throughout Europe for several centuries. “However disgusting the details of the persecution raised against witchcraft before the 15th century,” writes G. C. Lee in The History of the Inquisition, “they were only a prologue to blind and insane murders that left a shameful stain on the next century and half of the 17th century. It seemed that madness had seized the whole Christian world, and that Satan could rejoice at the worship that was paid to his power, seeing how the smoke of sacrifices ascended endlessly, testifying to his triumph over the almighty. Protestants and Catholics competed in deadly fury. They no longer burned sorceresses singly or in pairs, but in tens and hundreds. Bishop of Bamberg - six hundred, Bishop of Würzburg - nine hundred; eight hundred were condemned, in all likelihood, at one time by the senate of Savoy ... "

In Italy, after the publication of the bull on witches by Pope Adrian VI (1522-1523), addressed to the inquisitor of the Como region, more than 100 witches were burned annually. In France, the first known burning took place at Toulouse in 1285, when a woman was accused of cohabiting with the devil, from which she allegedly gave birth to a cross between a wolf, a snake and a man. B1320-1350 200 women climbed the fires in Carcassonne, more than 400 in Toulouse. In Toulouse, on February 9, 1619, the famous Italian pantheist philosopher Giulio Vanini was burned. The execution procedure was regulated in the verdict as follows: “The executioner will have to drag him in one shirt on a mat, with a slingshot around his neck and a board on his shoulders, on which the following words should be written: “Atheist and blasphemer.” The executioner must deliver him to the main gate of the city's cathedral of Saint-Étienne and there put him on his knees, barefoot, with his head bare. In his hands he must hold a lit wax candle and will have to beg for the forgiveness of God, the king and the court. Then the executioner will take him to the Place de Salene, tie him to a stake erected there, tear out his tongue and strangle him. After that, his body will be burned on a fire prepared for this, and the ashes will be scattered to the wind” (14: 360).

The German historian Johann Scherr writes that the mass executions of heretics in Germany began around 1580 and continued for nearly a century. “While the whole of Lorraine was smoking from the fires ... in Padeborn, in Brandenburg, in Leipzig and its environs, many executions were also carried out. In the county of Werdenfeld in Bavaria in 1582, one trial led 48 witches to the stake ... In Braunschweig between 1590-1600. they burned so many witches (10–12 people daily) that their pillory stood in a “dense forest” in front of the gates. In the small county of Genneberg, 22 witches were burnt in 1612 alone, in 1597-1876. - only 197 ... In Lindheim, with 540 inhabitants, from 1661 to 1664, 30 people were burned. The Fulda sorcerer judge Balthazar Voss boasted that he alone had burned 700 people of both sexes and hoped to bring the number of his victims to 1000. In the county of Neisse, which belonged to the bishopric of Breslau, from 1640 to 1651 about 1000 witches were burned; we have descriptions of more than 242 executions. Between the victims come across children from 1 to 6 years. At the same time, several hundred witches were murdered in the bishopric of Olmütz. In Osnabrück in 1640, 80 witches were burned. A certain Mr. Rantsov burned on one day in 1686 in Holstein 18 witches. According to surviving documents, in the Bishopric of Bamberg, with a population of 100,000 people, it was burned in 1627–1630. 285 people, and in the bishopric of Würzburg for three years (1727-1729) more than 200 were burned; among them there are people of all ages, ranks and sex ...

The last burning on a huge scale was arranged by the Archbishop of Salzburg in 1678; at the same time, 97 people fell victim to holy fury. To all these executions known to us from documents, we must add more, according to at least, the same number of executions, the acts of which are lost to history. Then it will turn out that every city, every town, every prelacy, every noble estate in Germany lit bonfires, on which thousands of people accused of witchcraft perished. We will not exaggerate if we put the number of victims at 100,000 people. In 1586, summer was late in the Rhine provinces, and the cold continued until June; this could only be the work of sorcery, and the Bishop of Trier burned one hundred and eighteen women and two men, from whom the consciousness was torn out that this continuation of the cold was the work of their spells. The Bishop of Würzburg Philipp-Adolf Ehrenberg (1623-1631) should be mentioned separately. In Würzburg alone, he organized 42 bonfires, on which 209 people were burned, including 25 children aged 4 to 14 years. Among those executed were the most beautiful girl, the fattest woman and the fattest man - the deviation from the norm seemed to the bishop direct evidence of connections with the devil ”(17).

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In our time, where the death penalty is still applied, they try to make it as painless as possible. But our ancestors acted in a completely different way - after all, before the meaning of execution was also in the fact that the condemned ended his life in the most painful way, and it was disrespectful for the rest to act in the same way as he did.

15. Blood Eagle
In the series "Vikings" this ancient Scandinavian method of execution was shown in all its glory. The bloody eagle is a painful execution, a punishment for traitors. The back of the victim was cut open to expose the ribs. Then they were broken and divided so that they resembled the wings of an eagle. All manipulations had to be done quickly so that the sentenced person did not die immediately during the execution, but had time to suffer. Then light victims were pulled through the holes between the ribs, and salt was sprinkled on the wounds. Sometimes the victim died of blood loss and a heart attack before the final stage of painful execution. If the condemned man managed to endure the pain and not scream, then in the eyes of the crowd he atoned a little for his guilt before the gods.

14. Devil Wind
This type of death penalty was invented by the British specifically to suppress the Sepoy Rebellion (1857-1858) and then used it very actively. The sentenced was tied to the muzzle of a cannon, and then fired from it through the body of the victim (both with a cannonball and a blank charge of gunpowder).

13. Gridiron
Gridiron - Grid for torture by fire. In the picture: the torture of St. Lawrence on the gridiron. The victim was gradually roasted on hot coals. This method of torture is mentioned in the lives of the saints, but it is unlikely that he survived at least until the Middle Ages.

12. Welding in boiling water
This method of execution is closely associated with Henry VIII, but it was popular around the world. In ancient Egypt, the Mongol Empire, medieval Japan, France ... In Japan, this execution was applied to ninjas who could not complete the task and were captured. There were many ways to do this. Usually the victim was undressed and immersed or thrown into a cauldron of boiling water. Sometimes the water was cold at first and its temperature rose gradually. Sometimes not water was used, but oil, resin, acid, wax, wine, or molten lead.

11. Tearing by horses
Such an execution was used in the Holy Roman Empire. If suddenly someone decided to stop such an execution, there was a high probability that he would not have time to do this.

10. Sawing in half
A very cruel method of execution, which is hard to believe. This is how sinners were executed during the Inquisition. The victim was hung upside down so that the blood would not stop flowing to the head and supply oxygen to the brain, and they began to slowly saw from the crotch down. Sometimes they reached halfway and stopped, and the person was still conscious.

9. Rats
This method of lethal torture was very popular in ancient China. However, in the 16th century in the Netherlands they also did not disdain. A cage with hungry rats is tied to the chest and stomach of the victim, then the bottom of the cage is heated by fire. The rats try to escape and begin to gnaw their way through the victim's body.

8. Copper bull
The Bull of Falaris (also Copper Bull, Sicilian Bull) is an ancient execution tool created by the coppersmith Perillus for the tyrant Falaris in the second half of the 6th century BC. e. It was a hollow copper bull with a door through which the convict was stuffed inside. Then a fire was made under the bull. Smoke poured from the nostrils of the bull, and the screams of the victim, amplified by acoustics, were like the roar of a bull. Later, a similar method of execution appeared in the Byzantine Empire, but they used copper barrels. Such an execution was also popular in the Commonwealth, especially in relation to the leaders of the anti-Polish uprisings - the Zaporozhye Cossacks.

7. Elephant trampling
This method of execution existed for hundreds of years in India and Indochina - until the first half of the 19th century. Elephants are very trainable and can be trained to trample a person on command, and even teach them to do it more quickly or more slowly. The victim is tied, an elephant is brought in, which should crush the person's head. If there is an order from the public - first the elephant crushes the victim's arms and legs, and then steps on the head.

6. Fight with predators
This is such an entertainment, popular in ancient Rome, when the condemned were forcibly thrown into the arena to fight with predators - tigers, lions, bears. In this case, an unprotected and unarmed gladiator was called a bestiary. Sometimes they also became bestiaries voluntarily - in search of recognition or money, but basically this was how spectacular massacres of disenfranchised prisoners took place. In general, execution in the form of throwing to predators existed among many peoples of the world.

5. Skinning
Flaying is one of the oldest methods of execution, used to intimidate enemies. It was used by the ancient Assyrians, but this method of execution was also used in Western Europe: traitors and traitors, as well as commoners who started tricks with women of royal blood, were punished this way.

4. Burial alive
This method of execution came to Europe from the East and was applied to Christian martyrs. In medieval Italy, unrepentant murderers were buried alive. In Germany, female child killers were buried alive in the ground. In Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries, women who killed their husbands were buried alive up to their necks.

3. Bamboo
Legendary Chinese execution method. It is not known whether it was actually used, since there is no evidence, only descriptions have survived. Some varieties of bamboo can grow up to a meter in a day. Bamboo sprouts were sharpened with a knife, the victim was hung horizontally above the "spears" of bamboo. The bamboo then quickly grows upward and begins to sprout through the victim's body, causing unimaginable agony.

2. Skafism
This method of execution was popular in ancient Persia. The victim was placed in a wooden trough and tied tightly, then smeared with honey and force-fed with honey and milk, which caused the victim to develop diarrhea. Then the trough was allowed to float in the swamp, preferably where there are many vile insects and other creatures that are not indifferent to human flesh.

1. Ling-chi
Ling chi is a painful execution method invented in medieval China and used until 1905. Ling chi literally means "death by a thousand cuts". Small fragments were cut off from the body of the victim, and a separate knife was intended for each part of the body, and all this went on for a very long time. This massacre ended with a blow to the heart. The victim was previously drugged with opium - either out of mercy, or to keep her conscious during the execution. Ling-chi was used in China for treason and parricide.

With the development of civilization, human life has gained value regardless of social status and wealth. It is all the more terrible to read about the black pages of history, when the law did not just deprive a person of life, but turned the execution into a spectacle for the amusement of ordinary people. In other cases, the execution could be of a ritual or instructive nature. Unfortunately, there are similar episodes in modern history. We have compiled a list of the most brutal executions ever practiced by humans.

Executions of the Ancient World

Skafism

The word "skafism" is derived from the ancient Greek word "trough", "boat", and the method itself went down in history thanks to Plutarch, who described the execution of the Greek ruler Mithridates at the behest of Artaxerxes, the king of the ancient Persians.

First, a person was stripped naked and tied inside two dugout boats in such a way that the head, arms and legs remained outside, which were thickly smeared with honey. The victim was then forcibly fed a mixture of milk and honey to induce diarrhea. After that, the boat was lowered into stagnant water - a pond or lake. Lured by the smell of honey and sewage, the insects clung to the human body, slowly devoured the flesh and laid their larvae in the formed gangrenous ulcers. The victim remained alive for up to two weeks. Death came from three factors: infection, exhaustion and dehydration.

Execution by impalement was invented in Assyria (modern Iraq). In this way, residents of rebellious cities and women who had an abortion were punished - then this procedure was considered infanticide.

The execution was carried out in two ways. In one version, the convict was pierced in the chest with a stake, in the other, the tip of the stake passed through the body through the anus. Tormented people were often depicted in bas-reliefs as an edification. Later, this execution began to be used by the peoples of the Middle East and the Mediterranean, as well as by the Slavic peoples and some European ones.

Execution by elephants

This method was used mainly in India and Sri Lanka. Indian elephants lend themselves well to training, which was used by the rulers of Southeast Asia.

There were many ways to kill a person with an elephant. For example, armor with sharp spears was put on the tusks, with which the elephant pierced the criminal and then, still alive, tore it apart. But most often, elephants were trained to press down the convict with their foot and alternately tear off the limbs with their trunk. In India, a guilty person was often simply thrown at the feet of an angry animal. For reference, an Indian elephant weighs about 5 tons.

Tradition to the beasts

Behind the beautiful phrase "Damnatio ad bestias" lies the painful death of thousands of ancient Romans, especially among the early Christians. Although, of course, this method was invented long before the Romans. Usually lions were used for execution, less popular were bears, panthers, leopards and buffaloes.

There were two types of punishment. Often a person sentenced to death was tied to a post in the middle of a gladiatorial arena and wild animals were lowered onto it. There were also variations: they threw it to a cage to a hungry animal or tied it to its back. In another case, the unfortunate was forced to fight against the beast. From the weapons they had a simple spear, and from the "armor" - a tunic. In both cases, many spectators gathered for the execution.

death on the cross

The crucifixion was invented by the Phoenicians, an ancient people of seafarers who lived in the Mediterranean. Later, this method was adopted by the Carthaginians, and then by the Romans. The Israelites and Romans considered death on the cross to be the most shameful, because this was how hardened criminals, slaves and traitors were executed.

Before crucifixion, a person was undressed, leaving only a loincloth. He was beaten with leather whips or freshly cut rods, after which he was forced to carry a cross weighing about 50 kilograms to the place of crucifixion. Having dug a cross into the ground near the road outside the city or on a hill, a person was lifted with ropes and nailed to a horizontal bar. Sometimes the convict's legs were crushed with an iron rod beforehand. Death came from exhaustion, dehydration or pain shock.

After the prohibition of Christianity in feudal Japan in the 17th century. crucifixion was used against visiting missionaries and Japanese Christians. The scene of execution on the cross is present in Martin Scorsese's drama Silence, which tells about this period.

Bamboo execution

The ancient Chinese were champions of sophisticated torture and execution. One of the most exotic methods of killing is the stretching of the culprit over the growing shoots of young bamboo. The sprouts made their way through the human body for several days, causing incredible suffering to the executed.

ling chi

"Ling-chi" is translated into Russian as "bites of the sea pike." There was another name - "death by a thousand cuts." This method was used during the reign of the Qing Dynasty, and high-ranking officials convicted of corruption were executed in this way. Every year, 15-20 people were recruited.

The essence of "ling-chi" is the gradual cutting off of small parts from the body. For example, after cutting off one phalanx of the finger, the executioner cauterized the wound and then proceeded to the next one. How many pieces to cut off from the body, the court determined. The most popular verdict was cutting into 24 parts, and the most notorious criminals were sentenced to 3,000 cuts. In such cases, the victim was given opium to drink: so she did not lose consciousness, but the pain made its way even through the veil of drug intoxication.

Sometimes, as a sign of special mercy, the ruler could order the executioner to first kill the condemned with one blow and torture the corpse already. This method of execution was practiced for 900 years and was banned in 1905.

Executions of the Middle Ages

blood eagle

Historians question the existence of the Blood Eagle execution, but it is mentioned in Scandinavian folklore. This method was used by the inhabitants of the Scandinavian countries in the early Middle Ages.

The harsh Vikings killed their enemies as painfully and symbolically as possible. The man's hands were tied and laid on his stomach on a stump. The skin on the back was carefully cut with a sharp blade, then the ribs were pryed with an ax, breaking them out in a shape resembling eagle wings. After that, the lungs were removed from the still living victim and hung on the ribs.

This execution is shown twice in the Vikings series with Travis Fimmel (in episode 7 of season 2 and episode 18 of season 4), although the audience noted the contradictions between the serial execution and the one described in the Elder Edda folklore.

"Bloody Eagle" in the series "Vikings"

Tearing by trees

Such an execution was widespread in many regions of the world, including in Russia in the pre-Christian period. The victim was tied by the legs to two inclined trees, which were then abruptly released. One of the legends says that Prince Igor was killed by the Drevlyans in 945 - because he wanted to collect tribute from them twice.

Quartering

The method was used as in medieval Europe. Each limb was tied to horses - the animals tore the sentenced into 4 parts. In Russia, quartering was also practiced, but this word meant a completely different execution - the executioner alternately chopped off his legs with an ax, then his hands, and then his head.

wheeling

Wheeling as a form of the death penalty was widely used in France and Germany during the Middle Ages. In Russia, this type of execution is also known at a later time - from the 17th to the 19th centuries. The essence of the punishment was that at first the guilty person was tied to the wheel, facing the sky, fixing his arms and legs on the knitting needles. After that, his limbs were broken and in this form they were left to die in the sun.

Flaying

Flaying, or skinning, was invented in Assyria, then passed to Persia and spread throughout the ancient world. In the Middle Ages, the Inquisition improved this type of execution - with the help of a device called the "Spanish tickler", a person's skin was torn into small pieces, which were not difficult to tear off.

Welded alive

This execution was also invented in antiquity and received a second wind in the Middle Ages. So they executed mostly counterfeiters. A person convicted of counterfeiting money was thrown into a cauldron of boiling water, tar or oil. This variety was quite humane - the offender quickly died from pain shock. More sophisticated executioners put the condemned man in a cauldron of cold water, which was heated gradually, or slowly lowered him into boiling water, starting with his feet. The welded muscles of the legs were moving away from the bones, and the man was still alive.
This execution is also practiced by the extremists of the East. According to Saddam Hussein's former bodyguard, he witnessed an acid execution: first, the victim's legs were lowered into a pool filled with caustic substance, and then they were thrown entirely. And in 2016, ISIS militants dissolved 25 people in a cauldron of acid.

cement boots

This method is well known to many of our gangster movie readers. Indeed, they killed their enemies and traitors with such a cruel method during the mafia wars in Chicago. The victim was tied to a chair, then a basin filled with liquid cement was placed under his feet. And when it froze, the person was taken to the nearest reservoir and thrown off the boat. Cement boots instantly dragged him to the bottom to feed the fish.

Flights of death

In 1976, General Jorge Videla came to power in Argentina. He led the country for only 5 years, but remained in history as one of the most terrible dictators of our time. Among other atrocities of Videla are the so-called "death flights".

A person who opposed the tyrant's regime was drugged with barbiturates and carried unconscious on board the plane, then thrown down - certainly into the water.

We also invite you to read about the most mysterious deaths in history.
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The main news of today was undoubtedly the execution of the Minister of Defense of the DPRK on charges of treason. The minister was shot at a military school from an anti-aircraft gun. In this regard, I would like to recall what types of the death penalty exist today in the world.

The death penalty is the highest measure of punishment, which today is prohibited in many countries of the world. And where it is allowed, it is used only for extremely serious crimes. Although there are countries (for example, China) where the death penalty is still used quite widely for much lesser offenses, such as: bribery, pimping, counterfeiting of banknotes, tax evasion, poaching and others.

In Russian and Soviet legal practice, at different times, the euphemisms “the highest measure of social protection”, “the highest measure of punishment”, and in more recent times “an exceptional measure of punishment” were used to refer to the death penalty, since it was officially considered that the death penalty in the USSR was the measure of punishment is not practiced, but is used as an exception as a punishment for especially serious ordinary and state crimes.

To date, the world's most common 6 different types of death penalty.

A type of death penalty in which killing is achieved with the help of a firearm. At the moment, the most common of all the other methods.

Execution is carried out, as a rule, from guns or rifles, less often from other hand firearms. The number of shooters is usually from 4 to 12, but may vary according to the situation. Sometimes live ammunition is mixed with blanks to relieve conscience. Thus, none of the shooters knows whether it was he who fired the fatal shot.

According to the legislation of the Russian Federation, execution is the only form of the death penalty. Although the death penalty has not been legally abolished in our country, only a moratorium on it is observed, caused by international obligations related to Russia's entry into PACE. There has been no real execution of the death sentence since 1996.

In Belarus, execution is also the only method of execution.

Until 1987, shooting was the official method of execution in the GDR.

In the US, shooting is retained as a fallback method of execution in one state, Oklahoma; in addition, theoretically, 3 people sentenced to death in Utah before the legislative abolition of execution here can be shot, since this law does not have retroactive effect.

In China, where the largest number of death sentences are carried out today, a kneeling convict is shot in the back of the head with a machine gun. The authorities periodically arrange public demonstration executions of convicted government officials who take bribes.

Today, 18 countries use hanging as the only or one of several types of execution.

Type of death penalty, which consists in strangulation with a noose under the influence of the weight of the body.

For the first time, killing by hanging was used by the ancient Celts, bringing human sacrifices to the air god Esus. Execution by hanging is mentioned by Cervantes in the 17th century.

In Russia, hanging was practiced during the imperial period (for example, the execution of the Decembrists, "Stolypin ties", etc.) and by the warring parties during the civil war.

Later hanging was practiced during a short period of wartime and the first post-war years against war criminals and Nazi collaborators. At the Nuremberg trials, 12 top leaders of the Third Reich were sentenced to death by hanging.

Today, 19 countries use hanging as the only or one of several types of execution.

A method of carrying out the death penalty, which consists in introducing a sentenced solution of poisons into the body.

Used in the late XX - early XXI century, the method was developed in 1977 by medical examiner Jay Chapman and approved by Stanley Deutsch. The sentenced person is fixed on a special chair, two tubes are inserted into his veins. First, the sentenced person is injected with the drug sodium thiopental - it is usually used (in a smaller dose) for anesthesia during operations. Then pavulon is injected through the tubes, which paralyzes the respiratory muscles, and potassium chloride, which leads to cardiac arrest. Texas and Oklahoma soon passed laws allowing this combination; the first application occurred in Texas in late 1982. Following them, similar laws were adopted in 34 more US states.

Death occurs between 5 and 18 minutes after the start of the execution. There is a special machine for administering drugs, but most states prefer to administer solutions manually, believing this to be more reliable.

Today, 4 countries use lethal injection as the only or one of several types of execution.

A device used to carry out death sentences in some US states.

An electric chair is a chair made of dielectric material with armrests and a high back, equipped with straps for rigid fixation of the sentenced person. Hands are attached to the armrests, legs - in special clamps on the legs of the chair. The chair also comes with a helmet. Electrical contacts are connected to the ankle attachment points and to the helmet. The hardware includes a step-up transformer. During the execution, an alternating current with a voltage of about 2700 V is supplied to the contacts, the current limiting system maintains a current through the body of the convict of the order of 5 A.

The electric chair was first used in the United States on August 6, 1890 at the Auburn Penitentiary in New York State. William Kemmler, the murderer, became the first person to be executed in this way. Currently, it can be used in seven states - in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia at the choice of the convict along with lethal injection, and in Kentucky and Tennessee only those who committed a crime before a certain date have the right to choose to use the electric chair.

Today, the electric chair as the only or one of several types of execution is used only in the United States.

The physical separation of the head from the body is carried out with the help of a special tool - a guillotine or chopping and cutting tools - an ax, a sword, a knife.

Decapitation certainly leads to brain death as a result of rapidly progressive ischemia. Brain death occurs within minutes of the separation of the head from the body. The stories that the head looked at the executioner, recognized its name and even tried to speak, are, from the point of view of neurophysiology, greatly exaggerated. The head loses consciousness 300 milliseconds after the clipping and almost all higher nervous activity is irreversibly stopped, including the ability to feel pain. Some reflexes and facial muscle spasms may continue for several minutes.

Today, 10 countries in the world have laws that allow beheading as the death penalty, however, reliable information about their application exists only in relation to Saudi Arabia. Most beheadings these days have been carried out in jurisdictions subject to the Islamic Sharia, by militant Islamists in hotspots, and by paramilitaries and drug cartels in Colombia and Mexico.

A type of death penalty familiar to the ancient Jews.

Currently, stoning is used in some Muslim countries. On January 1, 1989, stoning remained in the legislation of six countries of the world. A number of media outlets reported on the execution in Somalia on 27 October 2008 of a teenage girl by an Islamist court after she was allegedly raped by three men on her way from her hometown of Kismayo to visit relatives in Mogadishu. According to Amnesty International, the convict was only thirteen years old. At the same time, the BBC noted that the journalists present at the execution of the sentence estimated her age at 23, and the conviction of a 13-year-old girl for adultery would be contrary to Islamic law.

On January 16, 2015, it was reported that militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant organization stoned a woman accused of adultery in the Iraqi city of Mosul they captured.