10 of the Worst Torture and Execution Methods You Never Heard Of
Most gruesome acts you don’t want to read while eating
Disclaimer: Graphic content. Some viewers may find the following article disturbing. Viewer discretion advised.
I am sure you have heard of things like quartering and cutting out tongues. But here I gathered the nastiest ways people used to torture and kill others. This list includes both ancient and modern techniques of inflicting pain everywhere from England to China. I hope you enjoy learning about it and, please, don’t try this at home.
1. Breaking Wheel
The Breaking Wheel has a huge wooden wheel to which the punished one would be tied down and then beaten up with heavy objects. Sometimes those wheels were placed vertically on a spinning system and fire would be lit underneath so that when the torturer would spin the wheel the tortured one would get burned for a few moments. Sometimes after beating the punished one with a heavy wooden stick on the wheel, they would place the wheel vertically on tall wooden tower-like structures and left to die in the sun. They also would untie broken limbs and tie them back up bent in most unnatural positions to inflict even more pain on the punished one. The Breaking Wheel method would not necessarily kill a person, but they were destined to die after such torture because of pain, infection, and general exhaustion.
2. Spanish Tickler
While it does not sound like a torture device, Spanish Tickler had nothing to do with tickling. It was a very sharp claw-like instrument that the torturer would hold in their hand and rip the flesh on the tortured one by applying pressure on the skin. Usually, such torture would be performed in public and the torturer would take his time scarring the person inch by inch. Sometimes the Spanish Tickler would be combined with other torture methods as racking (pulling a person apart to the point of limbs breaking) and rat torture. In most cases, people who would undergo the Spanish Tickler method would not survive to see another day because of the immense pain it caused. Imagine having long and deep wounds all over your body. That must have been a horrible way to go but wait till you read to the bottom of this article.
3. Bamboo Torture
This is probably the most inventive method of torture I discovered. Bamboo Torture is just that torture with bamboo. No, not by hiking a person with bamboo sticks. But by letting the bamboo shoots grow into the body of the tortured one. Bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants on Earth. “Certain species of bamboo can grow 910 mm (36 in) within a 24-hour period.” (Wikimedia) So an obvious use of this knowledge to our ancestors was to torture people with it. At first, I was sceptical about a plan penetrating human muscles but then I watched a MythBusters episode on it and they have proven that it is indeed possible. This would be indeed a nasty way to die. The death would be slow and painful. Those people were still alive when bamboo was growing right through them! Sometimes the bamboo shoot would indeed grow through tortured people and appear on the other end while the person was still conscious.
4. Blood Eagle
If you have seen The Vikings tv show you are most likely family with this execution method. A brutal way in which Northman murdered only the worst criminals. It was a religious act as well as execution because the life of the killed one was sacrificed to the gods. The ritual consisted of cutting open the back of the person with an axe breaking the ribs apart exposing lungs. Then they would stretch two sides of the upper body in opposite director creating wings out of flesh and skin, thus the eagle. Further, the lungs would be taken out of the ribcage still attached to the oesophagus so the person would be able to breathe to keep them alive until they finally die of blood loss.
5. Flaying Alive
I guess similar to Blood Eagle would be Flaying Alive torture or in other words, skinning people alive. Yes, you heard me right. The torturers would make a few long cuts around the body and then pull it separating the skin from the muscles. The worst part is that people wouldn’t die immediately but could stay alive for days like that, without any skin. They were usually skinned and chained up outside vulnerable to weather elements, small animals, birds, insects, and people who would further torture them by throwing rocks or similar objects at them. Eventually, they would die of obvious reasons like infection and blood loss. Their entire bodies would turn into one giant wound.
6. Chinese Water Torture
Another torture method I was sceptical about is Chinese Water Torture. This one is a merely physical and mostly psychological form of getting people to talk. People would be tied down to a table and a vessel with water would be put over their foreheads. The water would slowly drip from the vessel on them eventually driving them crazy. MythBusters decided to test this torture too because it is pretty hard to believe that just drips of water could do any harm. After 3 hours of laying under the vessel, the experimentation started feeling claustrophobic and almost had a panic attack. They decided to end the experiment there. Physically everything was alright, however, the physiological test showed that Chinese Water Torture definitely had its effect.
7. White Room Torture
Another psychological torture was the White Room Torture. A person would be dressed in all white clothes, placed in an all-white room, with no colours whatsoever. Even the food was only white rice. The worst part, in my opinion, was that white light would be kept on all the time no matter if it is day or night outside. Oh, and did I mention? There were no windows, just one door through which guards could pass the food and take the prisoner to an all-white bathroom. Guards would not talk and in general, there were no noises at all. Silence for days on end. This form of torture is a bit more modern than the others on the list. It got the most popular in Iran in the 1990s and early 2000s. Prisoners would go crazy in the White Room and those who managed to escape claim that anything would be better than that. On the Vsauce YouTube channel, the host Michael Stevens performed an experiment on himself in episode “Isolation” where he locked himself in an all-white room for 3 days. By the end of the experiment he was losing it, he got depressed and he admits that it was a scary experience.
Now we are entering the Top 3 zone:
8. Swedish Drink
Arguably the grossest torture on the list is Swedish Drink. It was a toxic cocktail made out of human waste. Yes, both urine and excrements, all of it. And then the tortured ones were forced to drink it. That would give people severe bloating and when forced enough liquid in that would cause the stomach to rapture. In case human waste was not around they would use water or liquid manure. The effect would be the same except not that nasty, yet as much torturesome. The origin of this torture comes from the Thirty Years’ War in the 17th century in Europe. The reason why it is called “Swedish drink” is that Swedes performed it on captured German soldiers and that’s what German started to call that method of torture.
9. Keelhauling
This form of torture was used by pirates only in cases when someone did an unforgettable thing. For example, starting an uproar that did not go well or the crew could even punish their captain like that if they felt that he is doing something unfair. But why was it used only in the worst cases? Well because it was a particularly horrible experience. Have you ever seen the bottoms of old ships? All the barnacles, molluscs, corals and other sea creatures growing on them are extremely sharp and dangerous for people. Now imagine your crewmembers tie one end of a rope to your leg, throw you into the ocean, they go to the other side of the ship keeping the rope in the water and they start pulling you underneath the ship only to get you to the other side and repeat the process. It was rare for people to survive this because of all the cuts caused by barnacles. Sometimes they would even add some weights to the punished one so that it gets even harder to swim so they would end up almost drowning.
10. Scaphism
And here we are, the last and worst (in my humble opinion) punishment on the list — Scaphism. This was an extremely gruesome practice where a person would be stripped naked and tied up in a small boat where only their body would fit. Then they were fed extreme amounts of milk and honey to the point of diarrhoea. On top of that honey would be put all over their body prioritizing face and genitals. After this, the boat would be left in a body of water, preferable to a swamp because of all the insects living there. The smell of human excrements and honey would attract all sorts of bugs, especially flies that would lay their eggs right on the person after which larva would start eating the tortured one alive. It was a slow death. Imagine being still conscious while there are worms literally eating your intestines. All of that in hot weather, dehydrated and swimming in your own waste. Absolutely horrible. Scaphism was especially popular in ancient Greek and Persian times.
Sources
SimpleHistory. (2020, October 3). The breaking wheel (horrible punishments in history). YouTube. Retrieved December 2, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mocm-sXBJSg.
The Infographics Show. (2021, August 21). Spanish tickler — worst punishments in the history of Mankind. Retrieved December 2, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic2y8RSAN3g.
Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, December 1). Bamboo. Wikipedia. Retrieved December 2, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo.
The Infographics Show. (2020, December 24). Bamboo torture — worst punishments in the history of Mankind. Retrieved December 2, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEw3ItQFQbw.
The Infographics Show. (2020, January 26). The blood eagle — worst punishments in the History of Mankind. Retrieved December 4, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNEd9FyG5P4.
The Infographics Show. (2020, October 6). Skinned alive — worst ways to die. Retrieved December 4, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVGs0oMaJF8.
Mythbusters. (n.d.). Chinese water torture. Retrieved December 4, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17DhRkeNJMY.
The Infographics Show. (2020, August 28). White room torture — Worst Punishments in the History of Mankind. Retrieved December 4, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syQhuq7BnT4.
The 27 most gruesome torture techniques in the history. (n.d.). Retrieved December 4, 2021, from https://www.elitereaders.com/history-list-of-torture-techniques/.
The Infographics Show. (2021, May 23). Swedish drink — worst punishments in the history of Mankind. Facebook Watch. Retrieved December 4, 2021, from https://www.facebook.com/TheInfographicsShow/videos/swedish-drink-worst-punishments-in-the-history-of-mankind/2038152619671809/.
Fan, R. (2021, August 7). Keelhauling — torture by being dragged on ship’s bottom. Medium. Retrieved December 4, 2021, from https://medium.com/frame-of-reference/keelhauling-torture-by-being-dragged-on-ships-bottom-4313a4e21b2.
ViralNova. (2019, October 16). This ancient form of torture was the worst, most complicated way to die. ViralNova. Retrieved December 4, 2021, from https://viralnova.com/scaphism/.
