assyrian torture methods

In 1303, the treasury of Westminster Abbey was robbed while holding a large sum of money belonging to King Edward I. The victim would be repeatedly fed and covered with the honey mixture in order to prolong the torture. Appearing also in Malay history and culture, it has been contended the Siamese employed sprouts from the Nipah palm in an identical fashion to bamboo torture during the 1821 invasion of Kedah. The result was one of the strongest armies in the world. Tied to a wooden frame in a public place, small pieces of flesh would be slowly cut from the body. Upon reaching the location, he would be hung almost to the moment of death. He eventually died after two days of being pressed. Designed during the reign of the tyrant Phalaris (r. 570-554 BCE) by Perillos of Athens, the bull, as recorded by Diodorus Siculus, was supposedly made from bronze but hollowed out and with a door on one side. The breaking wheel, also known as the Catherine wheel, was a method of torture that featured as part of public executions in Europe between the start of the Middle Ages until the Early Modern Period. The device is rarely washed, so the victim either dies from impalement or infection. The miseries of war: No. The origins of the torture date to as early as ancient Babylon, with the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1772 BCE) detailing the punishment of impalement for women convicted of murdering her husband. Facing blame for both causing the blaze and providing inadequate response to the inferno, which caused widespread damage to 10 of Romes 14 districts, Emperor Nero blamed the fiery outbreak on religious minorities including early Christians. The most recent confirmed case occurred in New Jersey in 2010, when David Wax threatened a kidnap victim with rat torture. In contrast to common depiction, most crucifixions did not involve the nailing of the victims hands or feet to the cross. An illustration of execution by breaking wheel in Augsburg, Bavaria (c. 1586). A ritualized method of torture and execution, the Viking practice of the "blood eagle" stands among the most brutal and controversial of historical tortures. The practices represented in depictions include the cutting of the throats of enemies and the decapitation of dead bodies. <<7a948a1f817a16499a21d19a53bed43a>]>> This is often referred to as flaying alive. Photo credit: Wikimedia. By the reign of Queen Margaret I of Denmark (r. 1387-1412 CE), female adultery was punished with premature burial (whilst men merely got off with a quick beheading), and until 1689 Russia employed the torturous experience as punishment for the murder of a husband. Immurement, derived from the later im in and murus wall, literally comprises the entombing of an individual inside a wall or enclosed space without means of exit. Keelhauling, taking its name from the Dutch Kielhalen meaning to drag along the keel, was a torturous punishment inflicted upon sailors whilst at sea. Flaying, also known as skinning, is a method of torture (and often execution) whereby the skin of the victim is gradually removed from the body in a precise fashion. Ejaz Khan Using a heated vessel to contain the vermin close to the human, the rodent, growing increasingly desperate to escape its own suffering, is compelled to burrow into the flesh of the victim. Ironically, in a reversal of fortunes for the Babylonians, Darius I of Persia would later impale 3,000 of their own in vengeance. }?9{we#5SS"&~j[}mwD { 4A6*({[OUq.-1!>4?izc^(a7-=HkN{i,J~WnxjWwcON>Egjmd.pC =r*5o@/g e_?+\ VO7o:\~{[eWirG7a{8Nx?= 9^+:2Z The Ancient Assyrians Flayed Their Enemies To Frighten Them Stone carvings from the time of ancient Assyria around 800 B.C.E. If a man was caught with another man, the law said, they shall turn him into a eunuch. Adultery was punishable by death. Where do we find this stuff? Often, but not always used as a method of execution, the prisoner is left for an indefinite period of time to suffer from starvation and dehydration whilst trapped in isolation and darkness. Their reputation was so fierce that Jonah fled in fear when God commanded him to speak in Ninevah, Assyria's capital (Jonah 1:1?3).Assyrian soldiers were equipped with the latest weaponry, including barbed arrows, catapults, and siege machines. This form of execution became famous when Giles Corey, an American farmer charged with witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. When they came to your town, the men at the gates were vicious and battle-hardened. The Zhengde Emperor flayed six rebels,[9] and Zhang Xianzhong also flayed many people. updated November 28, 2017, 8:39 pm, by Many countries surrendered. The Judas Cradle is a stool-shaped torture device with a pyramid structure on top. n3kGz=[==B0FX'+tG,}/Hh8mW2p[AiAN#8$X?AKHI{!7. One Assyrian king recorded sparing some of the people he invaded but only after they shamelessly humbled themselves before him. Another innovation attributed to the Spanish Inquisition, the Judas Cradle, also known as the Judas Chair or Guided Cradle, was a torture device dating from the 16th century. Scaphism, also known as the boats, is a disputed method of Persian torture and execution. My skin peeled off. (e.g. The Assyrians were known for being very barbaric when it came to torturing slaves and prisoners of war. A Breast Ripper, on display at a torture museum in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Wrttemberg, Germany (c. 15th century). The fragment above is part of the Stele of Vultures. Then each of you will eat fruit from your own vine and fig tree and drink water from your own cistern. Those who did not, he warned, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine.. A pillar of heads I erected in front of the city.. More commonly appearing as a form of human sacrifice, however, many civilizations employed immurement as part of funerary rituals. 5X9&,6a4'r3n[?Ve:&gFiM lv_EVUW[!cq\'C+Czgzqq/6HwCA wVg/Bpm#*2)}my~MTeY NP;w4SvTNY6qo(W|EA-x*^sKK.y0Es}nCas -KosEI`uz}hZNOtDjd-K/-t {)M]4R,!X^f~4EE?TuMR)lGGw#~P 67SKEvs *!2Fg2$d,NX7E5_O[*b,@2B@r5[*X>l4[-eKfv)=Jf,vv]},.q@cUSU}Wz_b=LUB"wixJ uul|6pj~J&HlF%: ^ , This was Assyriathe first nation to make its military might its central policy and the first nation to torment its enemies with psychological warfare. Mark Oliver is a regular contributor to Listverse. Transmitted to the funerary rites of the Mongol Khans during the 13th and 14th centuries, these great conquerors were reportedly buried along with more than a dozen slaves. They invented the battering ram, a device that would have seemed completely unstoppable in their time. The Rassam cylinder in the British Museum describes this: Their corpses they hung on stakes, they took off their skins and covered the city wall with them.[3]. Thereafter, the pulped remains of the still-living criminal were strapped to the wheel itself and erected on a pole, akin to a crucifixion, until death. HWF}Wc/ v2`L&_Tu1M*$qt{o_|eo? I flayed many right through my land and draped their skins over the walls, he boasts in one. "F$H:R!zFQd?r9\A&GrQhE]a4zBgE#H *B=0HIpp0MxJ$D1D, VKYdE"EI2EBGt4MzNr!YK ?%_&#(0J:EAiQ(()WT6U@P+!~mDe!hh/']B/?a0nhF!X8kc&5S6lIa2cKMA!E#dV(kel }}Cq9 [2] Already from the times of Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883859 BC), the practice is displayed and commemorated in both carvings and official royal edicts. [citation needed]. Continuing in usage throughout Medieval Europe, most commonly as part of the execution of traitors, flaying became so popular in Imperial China that the Hongwu Emperor ordered the mass flaying of 5,000 women in 1396. Middle Ages Torture, devices, techniques and facts. A dead animal may be flayed when preparing it to be used as human food, or for its hide or fur. The judges of ancient Babylon were particularly enthusiastic. The carvings show that the actual flaying process might begin at various places on the body, such as at the crus (lower leg), the thighs, or the buttocks. Centuries before the United States of America would adopt the use of sleep deprivation and enforced standing to entice confessions and acquire intelligence, the Inquisition developed two ruthless mechanisms to achieve the same end: the Heretics Fork and Neck Traps. Abstract and Figures. Instead, asphyxiation is the most common cause of death in live burials, with the individual, unless carefully buried, unable to breathe. [5], In Chinese history, Sun Hao, Fu Sheng and Gao Heng were known for removing skin from people's faces. wG xR^[ochg`>b$*~ :Eb~,m,-,Y*6X[F=3Y~d tizf6~`{v.Ng#{}}jc1X6fm;'_9 r:8q:O:8uJqnv=MmR 4 I don't think torturers can be human. Since the conflict, questions have habitually been raised concerning whether bamboo is actually capable of inflicting the injuries claimed by survivors. In the 2010s, several Mexican cartel gore videos were leaked to the Internet, depicting flaying used as an extremely graphic torture technique. His writing also appears on a number of other sites, including The Onion's StarWipe and Cracked.com. When it comes to psychological warfare in the form of sheer brutality, impalement wasn't the only thing the ancient Assyrians turned tothey had other methods of scaring the life out of their neighbors. Ashurbanipal was the king of Assyria from 668 to 627 BC, and he was apparently quite gifted intellectually. Whilst small-scale flaying, although painful, is endurable, large-scale skinning inevitably leads to death. This was the first country to make military service mandatory for every male citizen, no matter who he was. and there were a lot of them. "The torturer asked me where I was from. Ancient Torture. Gadd, Cambridge University Press (1965), Viking atrocity and Skaldic verse: The Rite of the Blood Eagle, Roberta Frank, English Historical Review (1984), Torture and Brutality in Medieval Literature: Negotiations of National Identity, Larissa Tracy, D.S. A similar mode of execution was used as late as the early 18th century in France; one such episode is graphically recounted in the opening chapter of Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish (1979). The method can be traced all the way back to 911 BC, where it was practiced by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. All he left behind was a message, boasting of how far hed gone to decimate them. Wikimedia Commons. Starting with the dragging of the individual, fastened to a hurdle drawn by horse, from the site of imprisonment to their place of execution, along the route he would be pelted with rotten food and excrement by the public. Due to the physical harm suffered as a result of keelhauling, with the hull of a ship covered in barnacles, the victim would suffer immense lacerations resulting in major infections and cuts likely leading to their eventual death. (s.`Y fI2q-y6ZS?8,FYMe 8yj3O ,. The former, a bi-pronged fork attached to a belt around the victims neck, unflinchingly secured the angle of the head. Eventually, under pressure from Western nations undergoing their own liberalizations of violent punishments, in 1905, as part of widespread revisions of the Chinese penal code, lingchi was formally abolished as a criminal sentence. This is often referred to as flaying alive. Assyria made sure of it. Suspending the individual by a rope attached to the wrists, with weights added, if necessary, to increase the pain. The fragment above is part of the Stele of Vultures. It was one of the ideas that made Assyria so strong. Accused of attending anti-regime protests, al-Drubi, 42, was detained in 2012. He would then be lowered very slowly, the pyramid opening his anal orifice and slowly impaling him. Allegedly originating in Ceylon, with the first recorded account of bamboo torture stemming from a Madras civilian traveling during the 1820s in India, similar depictions have survived from throughout the region. Native Americans flayed their captives to make them suffer for as long as possible. I don't know where he is from, nor who he is. The strappado is so damaging that it cannot last for more than an hour without reprieve or risk of killing the subject. From here, he was transferred to the Hama military airport, where he was beaten upon arrival, stripped naked, interrogated and tortured. Used most commonly as a punishment for crimes against the state, appearing in civilizations and cultures around the world as among the harshest means of capital punishment, contrary to immediate assumptions impalement did not render a swift death. In at least one case, an Assyrian king made the women lift their skirts over their heads and march blindly after their captors. It was outlined as a naval punishment for sailors in the Rhodian Maritime Code. Wikimedia Commons. He would be left to float on a pond, with his accumulated feces and honey-covered body attracting insects which would eat and breed within his exposed flesh. Aside from inflicting agonizing pain, one of the main purposes of this method was to inflict severe humiliation upon the victim. From Ashurnasirpal II:.mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, I have made a pillar facing the city gate, and have flayed all the rebel leaders; I have clad the pillar in the flayed skins. A notable figure who enjoyed this method of torture was the Prince of Wallachia, Vlad III. Unknown to him, she was sacrificed, with the priest appearing during the festival dinner wearing her skin as part of the ritual. Wikimedia Commons. "The nobles and elders of the city came out to me to save their lives," he declared. The Assyrians, who ruled at the height of their power between Egypt and the Persian Gulf (745-630 BC), are known from historical records to have been cruel and unrelenting . 0000001500 00000 n Differing from immurement by both method and intent, those subjected to premature burial are interred with the purpose of execution, and, in contrast to the entombing of persons within walls, the victims die far quicker when buried. Louvre, Tello (ancient Girsu). Lewandowski, Herv. All of Assyria was subject to their resettlement policy, which uprooted whole families and moved them across the country. It was a widespread method which was implemented and documented in various accounts. Similarly, neck traps prevented the victim from adjusting the angle of their neck to a more comfortable position. The Assyrians were known for being very barbaric when it came to torturing slaves and prisoners of war. From his capital at Ashur, Ashur-uballit extended Assyrian control over the rich farming . Ormerod, Dorset Press (1987), Von Ursprung des Schindens in Assyrien, Ernst G. Jung, in Kleine Kultrugeschichte der Haut, Spring Verlag (2007), Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear, Jan Bondeson, W.W. Norton & Company (2002), Vampires, Burial and Death: Folklore and Reality, Paul Barber University Press (1988), Crucifixion in Antiquity: An Inquiry into the Background and Significance of the New Testament Terminology of Crucifixion, Gunnar Samuelsson, Mohr Siebeck Publishing (2013), Crucifixion in the Roman World: The Use of Nails at the Time of Christ, John C. Robison, Studia Antiqua (June 2002), Death by a Thousand Cuts, Timothy Brook, Jerome Bourgon, and Gregory Blue, Harvard University Press (2008), The Cambridge Ancient History: Assyria and Babylon, c. 1370-1300 B.C., C.J. In 1323, the Mexica tribe asked for Yaocihuatl, daughter of Achicometl, ruler of Culhuacan in marriage. Executions have often served as a kind of revenge, a way of inflicting pain and mental torture on the convict. An envoy would ride up to the city walls, knowing the fear the people there already felt, and would promise them that if they bowed down and paid tribute to Assyria, they would be allowed to live. Utilizing a simple design, the victim would be strapped atop the chair and forced to support themselves solely with their legs for an indefinite period of time. Attached to a spiked wall, the unfortunate woman would be attached to the mechanism and pulled along by her breasts until they were torn from her. Assyrian society was entirely military, with men obliged to fight in the army at any time. Assyrian torture method. G*0 oAsvHkj]YK Ay$^i-:Gb&@SubuQ~ay@$": 1O4=z+088r"YWv;V?Ry6UR=r? The nobles and elders of the city came out to me to save their lives, he declared. under a series of powerful rulers, becoming one of the world's earliest . Although women were excluded from these practices and doctors were required to be present, the Inquisition nevertheless enjoyed near limitless authority to inflict suffering upon those entrusted to their custody. This article has been adapted from its original source. This usually results in lacerations, infection, and scarring, since the ships hull is covered in barnacles. Keelhauling, which dates back in 800 B.C. Here are 20 of the slowest and most painful historical torture methods you would not want to endure: A disputed historical method of inflicting immense pain upon a victim, bamboo torture is a form of punishment wherein bamboo shoots are employed to grow into, and subsequently through, the body of the subjected person. She was subsequently executed by decapitation. 10, The Strappado, by Jacques Callot (c. 1633). Vikings discovering North America. At least two individuals, Richard Roose and Margaret Davy, in 1531 and 1542 respectively, are known to have suffered this particular fate before abandonment under Edward VI in 1547. Lingchi, also known as death by a thousand cuts, was a form of execution used in China from around 900 AD until it was banned in 1905. Top 10 risk factors an airplane is in danger, 10 Most Controversial Athletes of All Time, 10 Biggest Celebrity Scandals and Controversies of Hollywood, Hot Bolivian Women: Meet The 10 Most Beautiful Girl from Bolivia, Top 10 Most Beautiful and Hottest Cambodian Women, The 10 best women volleyball players in the world. As a result, the mechanism was specifically designed to mutilate and destroy the most visible feminine attribute in retribution for the alleged unwomanly crimes: the breasts. For example, Neo-Assyrian kings used it to punish rebel leaders. Life behind a citys walls when the Assyrian army drew close was terrifying. 0000005655 00000 n Whilst flaying after death has been historically recorded, typically as a means of debasing the enemys honor and reserved for instances such as criminality, the predominant occurrences took place during life. Immurement of a nun, as part of a fictitious painting by Vinzenz Katzler (c. 1868). The passage of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1791, prohibiting cruel and unusual punishments, was a direct response to this wartime practice and an attempt to prevent any further applications in the fledgling nation. Both named victims of the blood eagle Halfdan Long-Leg and lla of Northumbria were of royal blood, lending credence to speculation the ritual was reserved for persons of special importance. 0000000689 00000 n In some instances, mercy might be granted allowing for a swifter death, with the wheelset on fire or the condemned beheaded. Thereafter, his head, hands, and feet, were left outside the boats, whilst the remainder of his person was contained within the floating prison. After the hell that women of all eras have suffered after wars, they and their children would be led off into slavery. In the year 64 of the Common Era, the Great Fire of Rome devastated large parts of the imperial city. Their skin was attached to three doors as a warning against robbers of church and state. The sailor would be tied to a rope that encircled the underside of the ship, whereupon, being thrown overboard, they would be dragged underneath the ship and along the keel to emerge on the other side. Sign up to our newsletter for exclusive updates and enhanced content, Sign up to get Al Bawaba's exclusive celeb scoops and entertainment news, Syrian Man Reveals Worst Torture Methods Used by the Regime, Serie A: AC Milan vs Tottenham predicted lineups, Rihanna didn't get paid for her Super Bowl show, Awadallah jailed for sedition goes on hunger strike. CONTENTS. Using this method of torture would require the victim to be stripped and suspended above the device. Even if he gets lowered down slowly in order for his body to avoid the barnacles, he would still suffer from possible drowning or a head trauma. Flaying of humans is used as a method of torture or execution, depending on how much of the skin is removed. Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death. Syrian man, 42 recounts horrors in regime imprisonment, from having boiling water poured over him to reverse hanging. And the lungs would be ripped out and spread over the ribs, making them look like wings. Keelhauling was an official punishment in the Dutch Navy, although only rarely enforced due to its harsh nature. by The namesake for this torture was the Christian martyr, Saint Catherine. With the practice gradually watered down due to public opposition to its brutality, it was eventually abolished entirely in 1870. nQt}MA0alSx k&^>0|>_',G! 0000001205 00000 n The early Assyrians were a warrior society. 0000000016 00000 n VEerzLB(%_E|=".hq%%}]|~8P[Cxwf{7B_`s@jKSbJAsxAP,XRY\HmY8@iCK3rT ,4 _f,alNsg3kCQ87{i$js/8ZuU5{3{$\^75Bp,?q[Y0WB:Zi>PTYa,j0a'Np^ee6d1}$|>U}co~UE~OeXm7lfb}@;`b\v+Tu:2ylCYac0A-z~wg0y'4>-{3Qka3EJ?4uObNW=IeZ6oKq'Rcca.PvFz4Mw_Wsn>!);?

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