Little-known and exotic types of death penalty.
The story of the execution of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un's beloved uncle, who was fed to dogs, turned out to be a hoax. The heartbreaking story that was so widely circulated in the media is just joke by anonymous Chinese comedian , published on his microblog. I would like all the other stories of inhumanly terrible executions to also turn out to be just fruits of a sick imagination, someone’s nightmare and a horror story for impressionable children, but they all really took place in the past, are found in the present and, apparently, will accompany us for a long time humane humanity in the future. Inspired by the Korean craze, Disgusting Men looks at the most famous, inventive and spectacular ways to execute a person.Keep nervous patients, minor children, pregnant women, and people with digestive disorders away from the screen.
The burning eastern question
Perhaps one of the most famous in the whole world is the “bamboo execution”. Not a single documentary evidence of its use has survived, so perhaps this legendary execution is just someone’s fiction, but this does not make it lose its elegance.
Observant Asians noticed that young bamboo has an amazing ability to rapid growth, V favorable conditions sometimes adding almost a meter of length per day. One of the resourceful inventors guessed that this property of bamboo is useful not only for cute pandas who love to gnaw the young shoots of the plant, but can also serve executioners well - in cases where it is necessary to teach a condemned person a good lesson.
The essence of the execution is this: young bamboo shoots, which have sufficient hardness, are sharpened with a knife and watered abundantly to accelerate growth. The unfortunate immobilized victim is stretched out on the ground above these shoots. Mother Nature does the rest, you just need to give her a little time. The sharpest bamboo trunks will dig into the skin, causing unbearable pain, causing terrible torment, will pierce internal organs the person gets deeper and deeper, and, in the end, the body is pierced right through. Death is slow and painful, but in harmony with nature.
Bull Phalaris
Thousands of tourists come every day to look at the huge bull statue in New York, which personifies financial prosperity and aggressive optimism of Wall Street tycoons, but in ancient Sicily they tried to stay away from the bull statue, because it symbolized something completely different: pain, horror and quick death.
The so-called “Bull of Phalaris” is a terrible execution weapon, the highest technological achievement of the 6th century BC and at the same time an object of art for a small circle of connoisseurs. This bull was created by the Athenian master Perillus specifically by order of Phalarides, the ruler of the town of Agrigento (and still an existing city on the island of Sicily). The tyrant seized power by deception: under the guise of organizing the construction of a temple of Zeus for the entire community, he brought foreign craftsmen and slaves into the city and with their help, on the night of the Thesmophoria holiday, killed most of the men, becoming the sole ruler of the city. Phalarids decided that the only way to strengthen his power was to intimidate those who survived, for which he ordered the notorious bull.
The murder weapon was a life-size hollow copper sculpture of a bull with a door in the side. Through this door, the executioners threw the person sentenced to death inside the bull, then lit a fire under the bull, and the victim died, roasted alive. The only opening was the nostrils and mouth of the bull, designed in such a way that the cries of the executed person sounded like a bull's moo.
The first victim of the invention was its creator, Perillus, who was thrown there by order of the customer for greed. It is unknown how many unfortunates were roasted inside the bull, but a number of ancient sources say that the last victim was Phalaris himself, overthrown by the rebel citizens of Agrigento. Now this bull rests somewhere at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, where he goes.
No exit?
The idea of using various animals to execute a person, challenging the common phrase “man is the king of nature,” has come to people since the very beginning of time. The pinnacle of entertainment was achieved by the ancient Romans, who persecuted those sentenced to death in the arena of the Colosseum. Thousands of spectators came to watch exotic predators tear apart doomed slaves to the roar of the stands and the applause of the emperor. But it was not always possible to get something like a lion, tiger or crocodile: in the Middle Ages they got by with ordinary rats. Maybe not as spectacular, but certainly no less effective.
The execution technique is simple: the condemned person is undressed and tightly tied to the table, a cage with rats is placed on his chest or stomach, and burning coals are poured on top of the cage. The instinct of self-preservation makes the rats move in the right direction towards the cool 36.6 degrees Celsius. The torture sometimes lasted the whole day; It happened that maddened animals gnawed right through the doomed martyrs.
Innocent animals were generally widely used for executions: in India, the condemned were trampled by elephants, in Rus', the unfortunate were torn to pieces with the help of strong horses running in different directions, the Vikings threw their enemies into pits with many poisonous snakes. At least, unlike people, our smaller brothers do not feel remorse, and work completely free of charge.
Insect life
Irritation and dislike of a person towards various kinds spiders, ants, mosquitoes and other carnivorous small fry has quite understandable grounds, including historical ones. Ancient people, who lived in harmony with nature (see the paragraph about bamboo), knew how to use insects for their own benefit. No one is surprised by the Vietnamese who gobble up larvae by both cheeks. But, for example, South American Indians used ants in surgical purposes. The wound is tightened, pinched with fingers, and an ant is planted on top. It digs its jaws into the edges of the wound, after which the ant’s body is torn off from the head so that the jaws continue to compress the skin.
IN South America Legionnaire ants live; they roam the jungle in huge columns, devouring everything in their path. One day it occurred to someone that they could be turned into an instrument of painful execution. All that remained was to tie up the offender and leave him on their way so that the victim could reflect on his offense while waiting for a column of hungry legionnaires, or simply throw the person into an anthill to speed up the process. In less than an hour, the unfortunate man will die from painful shock and will be gnawed to the bones within 24 hours.
In Siberia, ants are not so bloodthirsty, and the indigenous people solved the problem of executioner insects differently. If you have ever been to the Arctic Circle or beyond the Urals in the endless taiga in the summer, then you are already familiar with mosquitoes, midges, midges and biting midges - all these are small flying bloodsuckers that live in these parts in countless quantities. A good alternative to biting legionnaires. Siberian aborigines took the offender deeper into the taiga, undressed and tied him up. Thousands of miniature Draculas immediately got to work. A person dies within a couple of days - if not from blood loss, then from toxic shock caused by an allergy to multiple bites. Dichlorvos and other fumigators were invented much later, so the victim had no chance.
Lin-Chi
The Chinese have been known since the Qin Dynasty for their diabolical invention in punishing criminals. The pinnacle of this thought was “Lin-Chi”, “death by a thousand cuts.” This is perhaps the most painful method of execution known.
Its essence was the very slow killing of the condemned by carefully cutting off pieces of his body. Legend has it that in particularly important cases such an execution could last up to a year, with the executioner acting in a sinister alliance with the doctor and jailers who ensured the preservation of the victim’s life. But a “simplified” version of Lin-Chi was documented, which was used until the beginning of the 20th century. The victim was pumped with opium to prevent a quick death from painful shock, tied to a pole in front of a large crowd of people, and the process began: the executioner cut off small parts from the body of the condemned man with a sharp knife, trying not to touch the vital organs. This execution lasted for hours and brought unbearable suffering to the victim.
Without a hitch
Contrary to popular belief, the guillotine is not at all the invention of the French doctor Joseph Guillotin: such a machine was used in Scotland and Ireland until the 18th century. The merit of the good Doctor Guillotin is that he gave life to technology among the broad masses of the people, guided by the most humane considerations. In 1789, at a meeting of the Constituent Assembly at the dawn of the French Revolution, Guillotin proposed using a mechanism to behead convicts, which he believed would not cause pain. In addition to speeding up the execution process and its “humanization,” the guillotine was supposed to play an important social role: at that time, only the highest strata of the population were executed by beheading; the third estate and the “other rabble,” as before, were hanged, burned and quartered. Guillotin proposed to equalize everyone before the law and bring a bit of justice to the French community of those sentenced to death. The idea met with warm approval, and already in 1792, the first execution of an ordinary thief using the guillotine took place on the Place de Greve in Paris, in front of a large crowd of public. The guillotine truly equalized all segments of the population: the King of France Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette failed to cut off their heads; they were executed by guillotine in 1793, just a few months apart.
The design of the guillotine was much simpler than the first bicycle invented. The main part for cutting off a head was a heavy oblique knife weighing up to 100 kilograms, suspended between special guides at a height of 2-3 meters. The condemned person was laid on a bench and his neck was clamped with special boards with a notch. After which the executioner opened the latch that held the knife, and it fell with a swing onto the victim’s neck. The severed head fell into a special bag. At that time, there was an opinion that the severed head could still see and understand something for a few seconds, so the executioner raised it at arm's length so that the victim could see the raging crowd at the last moment.
This method of execution turned out to be so successful that the design, with minor improvements, existed until the abolition of the death penalty in France in 1981.
Legacy of the Inquisition
Well, who knows, these guys didn’t suffer from a lack of imagination. Half, or even more, of the currently known torture devices or devices for executing a person were invented by the immaculate champions of purity Christian faith. The most famous method - burning at the stake - was tested by thousands of “heretics”, including the famous Giordano Bruno. But everything was not at all limited to a passion for pyromania; there were executions that were more original. Most of the inquisitors' torture devices remained in the Middle Ages, but some of them continued to be used much later.
For example, the Spanish inquisitors came up with the "garrote". Initially, the garrote was a simple pack with a noose, by tightening which the executioner killed the victim. Over time, the device was transformed into a metal hoop, tightened with a special screw. Before execution, the convict was tied to a chair or pole, a garrote was placed around his neck, and within 10 minutes the person died from painful asphyxia. Later, an improved “Catalan garrote” appeared, equipped with a screw with a point, which, when tightened, gradually screwed into the back of the convict’s head and crushed the cervical vertebrae. This device was “more humane”, since the victim died faster. In 1828, King Ferdinand VII of Spain banned hanging and introduced garrote as the only legal method of execution for criminals. This device gained great popularity and, together with the conquistadors, crossed the Atlantic Ocean. So he was executed with the help of a garrote the last Emperor Inca Empire Atahualpa. Garrote was also used in the United States before Thomas Edison invented the electric chair.
Devil's wind
Shooting as a method of executing criminals is a completely common method, used in many countries at all times, acquiring a special flourishing during wars, revolutions and mass repressions. Fast, painless, economical. But another method of killing using firearms is also known.
During the heyday of the empire, “on which the sun never sets,” the British decided not to skimp on gunpowder and began to shoot people... from cannons! This exotic method began to be used to execute participants in the sepoy uprising in colonial India in the mid-19th century. The victims were tied en masse to the muzzles of the cannons, and at the officer’s command the artillerymen fired in unison with increased powder charge without core. The famous Russian artist Vasily Vereshchagin, who captured the execution process in oil, painted the following picture:
A remarkable detail: while the body is shattered into pieces, all the heads, detached from the body, spiral upward. Naturally, they are then buried together, without a strict analysis of which of the yellow gentlemen belongs to this or that part of the body.
It was the dismemberment and mutilation of the body that were the reasons for the British to apply this execution to the participants in the uprising as an edification to everyone else. Mutilation frightened the Hindus: religious customs did not allow them to appear after death before the highest court in an incomplete, tormented form - without a head, without arms and without legs. In addition, the dead were buried in common graves without division into castes, which did not allow noble brahmins to escape from samsara and achieve nirvana.
Yo-ho-ho! Pull it under the keel!
Pirates were distinguished by their violent and unbridled disposition, but it was very difficult to rob ships without at least a semblance of discipline, so violation of the pirate code was severely punished. After getting drunk on rum, John Silver liked to send some particularly presumptuous scoundrel for a walk along the board to feed the sharks or throw him on desert island a couple of their guilty brothers in arms. But sooner or later, even such entertainment becomes boring and you have to invent something new. It is not known who first came up with the idea of pulling a sailor with ropes under the keel, but the idea was so loved by sailors that it was used in the navies of many states until the middle of the 19th century.
Keeling consisted of dragging a person using ropes from side to side or from stern to bow under the bottom of the ship. Even if the sailor was a good diver and could hold his breath long enough to survive, his skin, during friction against the bottom of the ship, covered with barnacles and various growths, was wounded to such an extent that death from blood loss and sepsis was guaranteed. So respect the pirate code, otherwise death.
Feast on Bones
The Tatar-Mongols also knew how to combine “business with pleasure”; they loved to organize victory feasts by placing feast tables on the backs of captured enemies. At the beginning of 1223, the Tatars invaded Crimea and plundered it; the city of Sudak (Surozh) was captured. The Council of South Russian princes decided to move against the Mongols until they gained enough strength. More than 20 princes and their squads took part in the campaign. The Tatars invited the Russians to avoid battle and act together against the Polovtsians, but the Russians categorically refused, cutting off the heads of the Tatar ambassadors.
Civilized steppe inhabitants already in the 13th century were well acquainted with diplomatic etiquette, and therefore were very upset when they learned that the ambassadors who were trying to persuade the Russians to act together against the Polovtsians were simply killed by the princes. This closed the way to peace negotiations. As a result, on May 31, 1223, the famous battle took place on the Kalka River, which ended in one of the most severe defeats of the Russian troops in their entire history. Due to inconsistency of actions, lack of a common command and betrayal of the Polovtsians, the Tatars won a victory and captured the Russian princes by deception.
The Tatars cut off all the people, and laid the princes under planks, and sat down on top of them to dine, and so the princes were killed.
According to chronicles, nine out of ten warriors who went on the campaign died. Among them were 12 princes, including the princes of Kyiv and Chernigov. This story added to the collection of everyday phrases: the expression “feast on bones,” which became very popular along with Pushkin’s “feast during the plague.”
Outside of this material we left out the atrocities of the fascists, the Gulag NKVD soldiers and the Japanese “researchers” from Unit 731. Outright sadists and inhuman beasts in human guise have come up with and will come up with a hundred or two more original ways To take a person’s life, you can’t keep up with everyone. Oh yes, we almost forgot! All stunts are performed by professionals. Don't try again.
GARROTTE.
A device that strangles a person to death. Used in Spain until 1978, when the death penalty was abolished. This type of execution was performed on a special chair with a metal hoop placed around the neck. Behind the criminal was the executioner, who activated a large screw located behind him. Although the device itself has not been legalized in any country, training in its use is still carried out in the French Foreign Legion.
There were several versions of the garrote, at first it was just a stick with a loop, then a more “terrible” instrument of death was invented. And the “humanity” was that a sharp bolt was mounted into this hoop, at the back, which stuck into the neck of the condemned person, crushing his spine, getting to the spinal cord. In relation to the criminal, this method was considered “more humane” because death came faster than with a regular noose. This type of death penalty is still common in India. Garrote was also used in America, long before the electric chair was invented. Andorra was the last country in the world to outlaw its use in 1990.
SCAPHISM.
The name of this torture comes from the Greek “scaphium”, which means “trough”. Scaphism was popular in ancient Persia. The victim was placed in a shallow trough and wrapped in chains, given milk and honey to induce severe diarrhea, then the victim’s body was coated with honey, thereby attracting various kinds of living creatures. Human excrement also attracted flies and other nasty insects, which literally began to devour the person and lay eggs in his body. The victim was fed this cocktail every day, in order to prolong the torture, attracting more insects that would feed and breed within his increasingly dead flesh. Death ultimately occurred, probably due to a combination of dehydration and septic shock, and was painful and prolonged.
HANGING, Evisceration and Quartering. Half-hanging, drawing and quartering.
Execution of Hugh le Despenser the Younger (1326). Miniature from "Froissart" by Louis van Gruuthuze. 1470s.
Hanging, drawing and quartering (eng. hanged, drawn and quartered) is a type of capital punishment that arose in England during the reign of King Henry III (1216-1272) and his successor Edward I (1272-1307) and was officially established in 1351 as punishments for men found guilty of treason.
The condemned were tied to a wooden sled that resembled a piece of wicker fence, and dragged by horses to the place of execution, where they were successively hanged (without allowing them to suffocate to death), castrated, gutted, quartered and beheaded. The remains of those executed were displayed in the most famous public places of the kingdom and capital, including London Bridge. Women sentenced to death for treason were burned at the stake for reasons of “public decency.”
The severity of the sentence was dictated by the seriousness of the crime. High treason, which jeopardized the authority of the monarch, was considered an act deserving extreme punishment - and although during the entire time it was practiced, several of those convicted had their sentence commuted and they were subjected to a less cruel and shameful execution, most traitors to the English crown (including many Catholic priests executed in Elizabethan era, and a group of regicides involved in the death of King Charles I in 1649) were subject to the highest sanction of medieval English law.
Despite the fact that the Act of Parliament defining the concept of high treason is still integral part In the current legislation of the United Kingdom, during the reform of the British legal system that lasted most of the 19th century, execution by hanging, drawing and quartering was replaced by horse dragging, hanging until death, post-mortem beheading and quartering, then was considered obsolete and abolished in 1870.
The above-mentioned execution process can be observed in more detail in the film “Braveheart”. The participants of the Gunpowder Plot, led by Guy Fawkes, were also executed, who managed to escape from the arms of the executioner with a noose around his neck, jump from the scaffold and break his neck.
BREAKING BY TREES - Russian version of quartering.
They bent two trees and tied the executed person to the tops of their heads and released them “to freedom.” The trees unbent - tearing apart the executed man.
LIFTING ON PEAKS OR STAKES.
A spontaneous execution, usually carried out by a crowd of armed people. Usually practiced during all kinds of military riots and other revolutions and civil wars. The victim was surrounded on all sides, spears, pikes or bayonets were stuck into her carcass from all sides, and then synchronously, on command, they were lifted up until she stopped showing signs of life.
PICTURE PLANTING
Impalement is a type of death penalty in which the condemned person is impaled on a vertical, sharpened stake. In most cases, the victim was impaled on the ground, horizontal position, and then the stake was installed vertically. Sometimes the victim was impaled on an already placed stake.
Impalement was widely used in ancient Egypt and the Middle East. The first mentions date back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. Execution became especially widespread in Assyria, where impalement was a common punishment for residents of rebellious cities, therefore, for instructive purposes, scenes of this execution were often depicted on bas-reliefs. This execution was used according to Assyrian law and as a punishment for women for abortion (considered as a variant of infanticide), as well as for a number of particularly serious crimes. On Assyrian reliefs there are 2 options: in one of them, the condemned person was pierced with a stake through the chest, in the other, the tip of the stake entered the body from below, through the anus. Execution was widely used in the Mediterranean and the Middle East at least from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. It was also known to the Romans, although it was not particularly widespread in Ancient Rome.
Throughout most of medieval history Impalement was very common in the Middle East, where it was one of the main methods of painful death penalty.
Impalement was quite common in Byzantium, for example Belisarius suppressed soldier revolts by impaling the instigators.
The Romanian ruler Vlad the Impaler (Romanian: Vlad Tepes - Vlad Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, Vlad Kololyub, Vlad the Piercer) distinguished himself with particular cruelty. According to his instructions, the victims were impaled on a thick stake, the top of which was rounded and oiled. The stake was inserted into the vagina (the victim died almost within a few minutes from heavy uterine bleeding) or anus (death occurred from a rupture of the rectum and developed peritonitis, the person died within a few days in terrible torment) to a depth of several tens of centimeters, then the stake was installed vertically. The victim, under the influence of the weight of his body, slowly slid down the stake, and death sometimes occurred only after a few days, since the rounded stake did not pierce the vital organs, but only went deeper into the body. In some cases, a horizontal crossbar was installed on the stake, which prevented the body from sliding too low and ensured that the stake did not reach the heart and other important organs. In this case, death from loss of blood did not occur very soon. The usual version of execution was also very painful, and the victims writhed on the stake for several hours.
PASSING UNDER THE KEEL (Keelhauling).
Special naval version. It was used both as a means of punishment and as a means of execution. The offender was tied with a rope to both hands. After which he was thrown into the water in front of the ship, and with the help of the specified ropes, his colleagues pulled the patient along the sides under the bottom, taking him out of the water from the stern. The keel and bottom of the ship were slightly more than completely covered with shells and other sea life, so the victim received numerous bruises, cuts and some water in the lungs. After one iteration, as a rule, they survived. Therefore, for execution this had to be repeated 2 or more times.
DROWNING.
The victim is sewn into a bag alone or with different animals and thrown into the water. It was widespread in the Roman Empire. According to Roman criminal law, execution was imposed for the murder of the father, but in reality this punishment was imposed for any murder by a younger person of an elder. A monkey, a dog, a rooster or a snake was placed in the bag with the parricide. It was also used in the Middle Ages. Interesting option- add quicklime to the bag, so that the executed person will also be scalded before choking.
The main positive brand of France is the revolutionaries of the 1780-1790s. approached the matter responsibly, significantly improving and diversifying the process. Three main "know-how" of the Great French Revolution that undoubtedly significantly advanced humanity in the direction of freedom, equality and fraternity:
1. The crowd is driven into the sea, where they drown cheaply and cheerfully.
2. Execution in wine tanks. Loaded - filled with water - drained - unloaded - loaded the next portion - and so on until the bourgeois issue was completely resolved.
3. In the provinces they didn’t think of such engineering - they simply drove them into barges and sank them. The experience with tanks has not caught on, but barges are used regularly around the world, right up to the present day.
A rare subspecies of the above is drowning in alcohol.
For example, under Ivan the Terrible, those who violated the state monopoly were forced to brew a whole barrel of beer, and to improve the taste, the violating brewer himself was drowned in it. Or they forced me to drink a bucket (or as much as I could) of vodka at a time. However, sometimes the condemned himself wanted to say goodbye to the world, in what he loved most. So George Plantagenet, the first Duke of Clarence, was drowned in a barrel of sweet wine - malvasia for treason.
POURING MOLTEN METAL OR BOILING OIL INTO THE THROAT.
It was used in Rus' during the era of Ivan the Terrible, medieval Europe and the Middle East, by some Indian tribes against the Spanish occupiers. Death occurred from burns to the esophagus and suffocation.
During the Thirty Years' War, captured Protestant Swedes were baptized into Catholicism by pouring molten lead.
As a punishment for counterfeiting, the metal from which the offender cast the coins was often poured in. By the way, the Roman commander Crassus, after his defeat from the Parthians, also learned all the delights of this execution, although with the difference that molten gold was poured down his throat: Crassus was one of the richest Roman citizens. Probably Spartak, in the next world, looked with pleasure at the unappetizing execution of his winner.
The Indians also poured gold down the throats of the Spaniards.
-Are you hungry for gold? We will quench your thirst.
Anyone interested in the video is welcome to watch Game of Thrones: the prince was given the promised crown on his head. In liquid form.
In general, this execution (with gold) is deeply symbolic: the executed person dies from what he most desires.
TO STARVE OR THIRST.
It was used by subtle connoisseurs of the process (sadists), or those trying to persuade a stubborn person to do something.
Japanese version - in last time used on Far East in the 1930s: the person being executed (tortured) with his hands tied is seated at a table, tied to a chair, and every day fresh food and drink are placed in front of him, which is taken away after a while. Many went crazy before they died of hunger or thirst.
With the Chinese, everything was exactly the opposite - the convict was fed, and very well. But they only gave him boiled meat. And nothing more. During the first week, the executed person cannot get enough of such humane conditions of detention. During the second week he begins to feel slightly worse. By the third week he already senses something is wrong and, if he is weak in spirit, falls into hysterics, and after the fourth it usually ends. Of course, there is an alternative - not to eat this very meat. Then you will die of hunger in about the same time.
Stoning is a type of death penalty familiar to the ancient Jews and Greeks.
After the corresponding decision of the authorized legal body (the king or the court), a crowd of citizens gathered and killed the culprit by throwing heavy stones at him.
In Jewish law, stoning was sentenced only for those 18 types of crimes for which the Bible directly prescribes such execution. However, in the Talmud, stoning was replaced by throwing the condemned person onto the stones. According to the Talmud, the condemned person should be thrown from such a height that death occurs instantly, but his body is not disfigured.
Stoning happened like this: the person sentenced by the court was given an extract of narcotic herbs as a painkiller, after which he was thrown from a cliff, and if he did not die from this, one large stone was thrown on top of him.
BURNING.
It was known as a method of capital punishment in Ancient Rome. For example, a Vestal virgin who broke her vow of virginity was buried alive with a supply of food and water for one day (which did not make much sense, since death usually occurs from suffocation within a few hours).
Many Christian martyrs were executed by burial alive. In 945, Princess Olga ordered the Drevlyan ambassadors to be buried alive along with their boat. In medieval Italy, unrepentant murderers were buried alive. In the Zaporozhye Sich, the murderer was buried alive in the same coffin with his victim.
A variant of execution is burying a person in the ground up to his neck, dooming him to a slow death from hunger and thirst. In Russia in the 17th and early 18th centuries, women who killed their husbands were buried alive in the ground up to their necks.
According to the Kharkov Holocaust Museum, a similar type of execution was used by the Nazis in relation to the Jewish population of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945.
And the Old Believers in Rus' buried themselves in the name of God and for the salvation of the soul. To do this, they dug special dugouts with a hermetically sealed exit - mines; candles were placed in them and a sawn pole in the center. Death was either “easy” or “hard”. A hard death guaranteed good karma, but most people could not bear the torment and chose an easy one, for this it was enough to push a pole in the center of a mine and you would immediately be covered with earth. One such case was described in full documentary detail by V.V. Rozanov in the book “Dark Face. Metaphysics of Christianity" or Borya Chkhartishvili (Akunin) in the story "Before the End of the World".
EMBUTION - a type of death penalty in which a person was placed in a wall under construction or surrounded by blank walls on all sides, after which he died from starvation or dehydration. This distinguishes it from burial alive, where a person died of suffocation.
USING LIVING NATURE.
Since ancient times, man has been finding new ways to put our little brothers in the service of humanity, and execution is no exception. The application is both the largest and the smallest: Indians specially train elephants to crush to death, and Indians launch ants at enemies below their backs (or simply put a person in an anthill).
You can put a rat in a pot, tie it to the victim’s stomach, pour burning coals on top and wait until it eats its way out to escape the heat.
In Siberia, they liked to leave a scoundrel naked in the taiga to be devoured by a midge, capable of drinking all a person’s blood in two days (however, the end will come much earlier, from simuliotoxicosis. Well, as an option - releasing snakes (or rats) into the insides or infecting some disgusting (germs are also living creatures).
In ancient Rome, criminals or Christians were poisoned by wild predators. In addition, for the execution of patricians they used (among others) an extremely interesting method: they were given a knife and thrown with rose petals. The convict had a choice: to kill himself or suffocate from the suffocating smell. The thing is that the flowers emit methanol with some volatile compounds, which in small quantities gives us pleasant aromas, but in large quantities leads to death through poisoning by fumes. By the way, fruits also have a similar effect.
DEFENESTRATION.
Also a type of death penalty, unauthorized, occurring spontaneously, without reading the verdict, but in the presence of a crowd. And, yes, the crowd was waiting for it. Literally - throwing out of a window (Latin fenestra). The victims were thrown out of window openings - onto the pavements, into ditches, into the crowd, or onto spears and pikes raised with their points up. The most famous example is the second Prague defenestration, during which, however, no one died.
This type of execution was first used in Ancient Rome. The subject was a certain young man who betrayed his teacher Cicero. The widow of Quintus (Cicero's brother), having received the right to deal with the Philologist, forced him to cut off pieces of meat from own body, fry and eat them!
However, the real masters in this matter were, of course, the Chinese. There the execution was called Lin-Chi or “death by a thousand cuts.” This is a protracted death by cutting out individual pieces of the body. This type of execution was mainly used in China until 1905. They were convicted of high treason and the murder of their parents. The convicted person was usually tied to some kind of pole, usually in a crowded place, in the squares. And then they slowly cut out pieces of the body. To prevent the prisoner from losing consciousness, he was given a dose of opium.
In his All-Time History of Torture, George Riley Scott quotes from the accounts of two Europeans who had the rare opportunity to witness such an execution: their names were Sir Henry Norman (who witnessed the execution in 1895) and T. T. May-Dows: “There is a basket there, covered with a piece of linen, in which there is a set of knives. Each of these knives is designed for a specific part of the body, as evidenced by the inscriptions engraved on the blade. The executioner takes one of the knives at random from the basket and, based on the inscription, cuts off the corresponding part of the body. However, at the end of the last century, this practice was, in all likelihood, supplanted by another, which left no room for chance and involved cutting off body parts in a certain sequence using a single knife. According to Sir Henry Norman, the condemned man is tied to the likeness of a cross, and the executioner slowly and methodically cuts off first the fleshy parts of the body, then cuts the joints, cuts off individual members of the limbs and ends the execution with one sharp blow to the heart.
Read more about the Chinese punitive system before the 1948 revolution here.
http://ttolk.ru/?p=16004
An analogue of Lin-Chi, skinning a living person has long been practiced in the Middle East. For example, the fourteenth-century Azerbaijani poet Nasimi was executed. Contemporaries are more familiar with Afghan developments in this area.
In the event that we are talking about the death penalty in this way, as a rule, after skinning, they try to save the skin for display for the purpose of intimidation. Most often, the skin was torn off from a person killed in another way - a criminal, an enemy, in some cases - a blasphemer who denied afterlife(in medieval Europe). Ripping off part of the skin can be part of a magical ritual, as is the case with scalping.
Skin flaying is an ancient, but, nevertheless, still not widely used practice, considered one of the most terrible and painful types of execution. In the chronicles of the ancient Assyrians there are references to the flaying of captured enemies or rebellious rulers, whose entire skins were nailed to the walls of their cities as a warning to all who challenged their authority.
There are also references to the Assyrian practice of "indirectly" punishing a person by flaying his small child before his eyes. The Aztecs in Mexico flayed victims during ritual human sacrifices, but usually after the victim had died. Skinning was sometimes used as part of the public execution of traitors in medieval Europe. A similar method of execution was still used at the beginning of the 18th century in France.
Large rags were discovered in some chapels in France and England human skin, nailed to the doors. IN Chinese history execution became more widespread than in Europe: this is how corrupt officials and rebels were executed, and, in addition to execution, there was a separate punishment - ripping off the skin from the face. Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang was especially “successful” in this execution, who massively used it to punish bribe-taking officials and rebels. In 1396, he ordered 5,000 women accused of treason to be executed in this manner.
The practice of skinning disappeared in Europe at the beginning of the 18th century, and was officially banned in China after the Xinhai Revolution and the establishment of the republic. However, in the 19th and 20th centuries, isolated cases of flaying occurred in different parts of the world, such as executions in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in the 1930s.
"The Court of Cambyses", David Gerard, 1498.
Red tulip is another option. The executed person was intoxicated with opium, and then the skin near the neck was cut and torn off, pulling it down to the waist so that it dangled around the hips in long red petals. If the victim did not die immediately from blood loss (and they usually skinned them skillfully, without touching large vessels), then after a few hours, when the effect of the drug ended, they would experience a painful shock and be eaten by insects.
BURNING IN A LOOT.
A type of execution that arose in the Russian state in the 16th century, especially often applied to Old Believers in the 17th century, and used by them as a method of suicide in the 17th-18th centuries.
Burning as a method of execution began to be used quite often in Rus' in the 16th century during the time of Ivan the Terrible. Unlike Western Europe, in Russia, those sentenced to burning were executed not at the stake, but in log cabins, which made it possible to avoid turning such executions into mass spectacles.
The burning house was a small structure made of logs filled with tow and resin. It was erected specifically for the moment of execution. After reading the verdict, the condemned man was pushed into the log house through the door. Often a log house was made without a door or roof - a structure like a plank fence; in this case, the convict was lowered into it from above. After this, the log house was set on fire. Sometimes a bound suicide bomber was thrown inside an already burning log house.
In the 17th century, Old Believers were often executed in log houses. In this way, Archpriest Avvakum and three of his companions were burned (April 1 (11), 1681, Pustozersk), the German mystic Quirin Kulman (1689, Moscow), and also, as stated in Old Believer sources[which?], an active opponent of the patriarch’s reforms Nikon Bishop Pavel Kolomensky (1656).
In the 18th century, a sect took shape, whose followers considered death through self-immolation a spiritual feat and necessity. Self-immolation in log cabins was usually practiced in anticipation of repressive actions by the authorities. When soldiers appeared, the sectarians locked themselves in the house of worship and set it on fire, without entering into negotiations with government officials.
The last known burning in Russian history took place in the 1770s in Kamchatka: a Kamchatka witch was burned in a wooden frame on the orders of the captain of the Tengin fortress Shmalev.
HANGING BY THE RIB.
A form of capital punishment in which an iron hook was driven into the victim's side and suspended. Death occurred from thirst and loss of blood within a few days. The victim's hands were tied so that he could not free himself. Execution was common among Zaporizhian Cossacks. According to legend, Dmitry Vishnevetsky, the founder of the Zaporozhye Sich, the legendary “Baida Veshnevetsky”, was executed in this way.
FRYING ON A FRYING PAN OR IRON GRATE.
The boyar Shchenyatev was fried in a frying pan, and the Aztec king Cuauhtemoc was fried on a grill.
When Cuauhtemoc was roasted on coals along with his secretary, trying to find out where he had hidden the gold, the secretary, unable to withstand the heat, began to beg him to surrender and ask the Spaniards for leniency. Cuauhtémoc mockingly replied that he enjoyed it as if he were lying in a bath.
The secretary didn't say another word.
SICILIAN BULL.
This execution device was developed in ancient Greece for the execution of criminals. Perillos, a copper foundry, invented a bull in such a way that the bull was hollow inside. A door was built into this device on the side. The condemned were locked inside the bull, and a fire was set underneath, heating the metal until the man was roasted to death. The bull was designed so that the screams of the prisoner would be converted into the roar of an enraged bull.
FUSTUARY (from Latin fustuarium - beating with sticks; from fustis - stick) - one of the types of executions in the Roman army.
It was also known in the Republic, but came into regular use under the Principate; it was appointed for serious violation of guard duty, theft in the camp, perjury and escape, sometimes for desertion in battle. It was carried out by a tribune who touched the condemned person with a stick, after which the legionnaires beat him to death with stones and sticks. If a whole unit was punished with a fustuary, then all the guilty were rarely executed, as happened in 271 BC. e. with the legion in Rhegium during the war with Pyrrhus. However, taking into account factors such as the soldier’s age, length of service or rank, the fustuary could be cancelled.
WELDING IN LIQUID.
Was a common type of death penalty in different countries peace. In ancient Egypt, this type of punishment was applied mainly to persons who disobeyed the pharaoh. Pharaoh's slaves at dawn (especially so that Ra would see the criminal) lit a huge fire, above which there was a cauldron of water (and not just water, but the very dirty water, where waste was dumped, etc.) Sometimes entire families were executed in this way.
This type of execution was widely used by Genghis Khan. In medieval Japan, boiling was used primarily on ninjas who failed to kill and were captured. In France, this penalty was applied to counterfeiters. Sometimes the attackers were boiled in boiling oil. There is evidence of how in 1410 a pickpocket was boiled alive in boiling oil in Paris.
A PIT WITH SNAKES is a type of death penalty in which the executed person is placed with poisonous snakes, which should have resulted in his quick or painful death. Also one of the methods of torture.
It arose a very long time ago. Executioners quickly found practical use for poisonous snakes, which caused painful death. When a person was thrown into a pit filled with snakes, the disturbed reptiles began to bite him.
Sometimes prisoners were tied up and slowly lowered into a hole on a rope; This method was often used as torture. Moreover, they tortured this way not only in the Middle Ages; during the Second World War, Japanese militarists tortured prisoners during battles in South Asia.
Often the interrogated person was brought to the snakes, his legs pressed against them. A popular torture used on women was when the interrogated woman was brought a snake to her bare chest. They also loved to bring poisonous reptiles to women’s faces. But in general, snakes that were dangerous and lethal to humans were rarely used during torture, since there was a risk of losing a prisoner who did not testify.
The plot of execution through a pit with snakes has long been known in German folklore. Thus, the Elder Edda tells how King Gunnar was thrown into a snake pit on the orders of the Hun leader Attila.
This type of execution continued to be used in subsequent centuries. One of the most famous cases is the death of the Danish king Ragnar Lodbrok. In 865, during a Danish Viking raid on the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, their king Ragnar was captured and, on the orders of King Aella, was thrown into a pit with poisonous snakes, dying a painful death.
This event is often mentioned in folklore in both Scandinavia and Britain. The plot of Ragnar's death in the snake pit is one of the central events of two Icelandic legends: “The Saga of Ragnar Leatherpants (and his Sons)” and “The Strands of the Sons of Ragnar.”
WICKER MAN
A human-shaped cage made of willow twigs, which, according to Julius Caesar's Notes on the Gallic War and Strabo's Geography, the Druids used for human sacrifices, burning it along with the people locked there, convicted of crimes or destined for sacrifice to the gods.
At the end of the 20th century, the ritual of burning the “wicker man” was revived in Celtic neo-paganism (in particular, the teachings of Wicca), but without the accompanying sacrifice.
EXECUTION BY ELEPHANTS.
For thousands of years, it was a common method of killing prisoners sentenced to death in the countries of South and Southeast Asia and especially in India. Asian elephants were used to crush, dismember, or torture prisoners in public executions.
Trained animals were versatile, capable of killing victims outright or torturing them slowly over long periods of time. Serving rulers, elephants were used to show absolute power ruler and his ability to control wild animals.
The sight of prisoners of war being executed by elephants usually aroused horror, but at the same time also the interest of European travelers and was described in many contemporary magazines and stories about the life of Asia. The practice was eventually suppressed by the European empires that colonized the region where executions were common in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although execution by elephants was primarily an Asian practice, the practice was sometimes used by ancient Western powers, particularly Rome and Carthage, primarily to deal with rebellious soldiers.
IRON MAIDEN (eng. Iron maiden).
An instrument of capital punishment or torture, which was a cabinet made of iron in the form of a woman dressed in the costume of a 16th-century townswoman. It is assumed that having placed the convict there, the cabinet was closed, and the sharp long nails with which the inner surface of the chest and arms of the “iron maiden” were seated were pierced into his body; then, after the death of the victim, the movable bottom of the cabinet was lowered, the body of the executed person was thrown into the water and carried away by the current.
The “Iron Maiden” dates back to the Middle Ages, but in fact the weapon was not invented until the end of the 18th century.
There is no reliable information about the use of the iron maiden for torture and execution. There is an opinion that it was fabricated during the Enlightenment.
Additional torment was caused by the cramped conditions - death did not occur for hours, so the victim could suffer from claustrophobia.
For the comfort of the executioners, the thick walls of the device muffled the screams of those being executed. The doors closed slowly. Subsequently, one of them could be opened so that the executioners could check the condition of the subject. The spikes pierced the arms, legs, stomach, eyes, shoulders and buttocks. Moreover, apparently, the nails inside the “iron maiden” were located in such a way that the victim did not die immediately, but after quite a while. long time, during which the judges had the opportunity to continue the interrogation.
DEVIL'S WIND (English Devil wind, also a variant of the English Blowing from guns - literally "Blowing from guns") is known in Russia as the "English execution" - the name of a type of death penalty that involved tying a condemned person to the muzzle of a cannon and then shooting from it. through the victim's body with a blank charge.
This type of execution was developed by the British during the Sepoy Rebellion (1857-1858) and was actively used by them to kill rebels.
Vasily Vereshchagin, who studied the use of this execution before painting his painting “The Suppression of the Indian Uprising by the British” (1884), wrote the following in his memoirs: “Modern civilization was scandalized mainly by the fact that the Turkish massacre was carried out close, in Europe, and then the means of execution the atrocities were too reminiscent of Tamerlane’s times: they chopped, cut the throats, like sheep.
The case with the British is different: firstly, they did the work of justice, the work of retribution for the trampled rights of the victors, far away, in India; secondly, they did the job on a grand scale: they tied hundreds of sepoys and non-sepoys who rebelled against their rule to the muzzles of cannons and, without a shell, with only gunpowder, they shot them - this is already a great success against cutting their throats or ripping open their stomachs.<...>I repeat, everything is done methodically, in a good way: the guns, however many there are, are lined up in a row, one more or less criminal Indian citizen is slowly brought to each barrel and tied by the elbows, different ages, professions and castes, and then on command all the guns fire at once.
They are not afraid of death as such, and execution does not frighten them; but what they are avoiding, what they are afraid of, is the need to appear before the highest judge in an incomplete, tormented form, without a head, without arms, with a lack of limbs, and this is not only probable, but even inevitable when shot from cannons.
A remarkable detail: while the body is shattered into pieces, all the heads, detached from the body, spiral upward. Naturally, they are then buried together, without a strict analysis of which of the yellow gentlemen belongs to this or that part of the body. This circumstance, I repeat, greatly frightens the natives, and it was the main motive for introducing execution by shooting from cannons in especially important cases, such as during uprisings.
It is difficult for a European to understand the horror of an Indian of a high caste when he only needs to touch a fellow low caste: he must, in order not to close off the possibility of salvation, wash himself and make sacrifices after that endlessly. It’s also terrible that under modern conditions, for example, on the railways you have to sit elbow to elbow with everyone - and here it can happen, no more, no less, that the head of a Brahmin with three cords will lie in eternal rest near the spine of a pariah - brrr ! This thought alone makes the soul of the most determined Hindu tremble!
I say this very seriously, in full confidence that no one who has been in those countries or who has impartially familiarized themselves with their descriptions will contradict me.”
(Russo-Turkish War 1877-1878 in the memoirs of V.V. Vereshchagin.)
Anyone who still wants to enjoy this topic can read the book “Torture Stories of All Time” by George Riley Scott.
A Korean man living in Japan is sentenced to death by hanging for the murder and rape of two women. The film begins with the execution of a death sentence, but it is not crowned with success: somehow the person sentenced to death survives. Witnesses and executors of the sentence (the Prosecutor, his secretary, representatives of the prison administration, prison employees, a priest and a doctor - in the future I will simply call them “executioners”) begin a long debate about how to determine the future fate of the surviving criminal. Everyone, of course, had different views on this matter. The situation was complicated by the fact that R, who woke up after hanging, completely lost his memory. As a result, the “executioners” came to the conclusion that it was necessary to first restore R’s memory and then hang him again
As you know, in Japan the death penalty still exists to this day. capital punishment punishments for especially dangerous criminals. In this film, the director reflects on the topic of whether there is a line between legal execution, which is ordered by the people represented by the state, and illegal murder, which is committed by a criminal. Who should pay for this state-sanctioned murder? What about the possibility that the man who was just hanged did not actually kill anyone? In this case, should the state show the same remorse for the criminal act that a criminal must show before execution?
In addition to the controversial issue of the nature of the death penalty, the director touches on one very pressing problem of post-war Japanese society: the problem of discrimination against Zainichi Koreans (???) an ethnic group of Koreans who immigrated to Japan before 1945 and subsequently became its citizens. Ostensibly restoring R’s memory, the “executioners,” whose idea of Koreans is built on stupid stereotypes, defined R’s childhood as poor and unhappy, because, in their opinion, his family probably had no money, and his father and brothers drank heavily. And in general, R simply had no chance of happy life, because he is Korean a representative of a “lower race”. The hatred with which the Japanese treat migrants reminds us of the relationship between those who condemn and those who are condemned. The “executioners” decide that R was driven to murder by his carnal desires, but by reenacting the moments of the murder, the “executioners” themselves reveal their true nature and their own dark fantasies. It turned out that representatives of the law were more obsessed with the ideas of crime than any other criminal. An absurd situation is created when potential criminals are given the power to bring justice to other criminals who have already committed an illegal act.
The unexpected appearance of sister R, who inspires her brother that he was an ardent nationalist, also makes sense to show a certain stereotype that Koreans, due to their own poverty and the anger that arises from this, have no choice but to take revenge on the Japanese (for example, rape and kill them women) and ruin their lives in every possible way.
By criticizing the socio-economic and socio-cultural barriers between people of different nationalities, the director condemns the stupid prejudices that arise in society.
Thus, the director created the greatest picture, which can be characterized as a vicious satire about a society that, without noticing it, creates a favorable atmosphere for crime to flourish, and in some situations itself becomes a murderer, without thinking about the criminality of its own actions.
With the development of civilization human life gained value regardless social status and wealth. It is all the more terrible to read about the dark pages of history, when the law did not simply deprive a person of life, but turned execution into a spectacle for the amusement of the common people. In other cases, the execution could be ritual or edifying in nature. Unfortunately, in modern history there are similar episodes. We have compiled a list of the most brutal executions ever practiced by people.
Executions of the Ancient World
Skafism
The word “scaphism” 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, the person was stripped naked and tied inside two dugout boats in such a way that his head, arms and legs remained outside, which were thickly coated with honey. The victim was then force-fed a mixture of milk and honey to induce diarrhea. After this, the boat was lowered onto still water - a pond or lake. Lured by the smell of honey and sewage, insects clung to the human body, slowly devoured the flesh and laid larvae in the resulting gangrenous ulcers. The victim survived for up to two weeks. Death occurred 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 through 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 edification. Later, this execution began to be used by the peoples of the Middle East and the Mediterranean, as well as Slavic peoples and some European ones.
Execution by elephants
This method was used mainly in India and Sri Lanka. Indian elephants are highly trainable, which is what the rulers of Southeast Asia took advantage of. 
There were many ways to kill a person with the help of an elephant. For example, armor with sharp spears was put on the tusks, with which the elephant pierced the criminal and then, while still alive, tore him into pieces. But most often, elephants were trained to crush the condemned with their feet and alternately tear off limbs with their trunks. In India, a guilty person was often simply thrown under the feet of an angry animal. For reference, an Indian elephant weighs about 5 tons.
Tradition to the Beasts
Behind in a beautiful phrase“Damnatio ad bestias” lies in the painful death of thousands of ancient Romans, especially among the early Christians. Although, of course, this method was invented long before the Romans. Typically, lions were used for execution; bears, panthers, leopards and buffaloes were less popular. 
There were two types of execution. Often, a person sentenced to death was tied to a pole in the middle of the gladiatorial arena and wild animals were released on him. There were also variations: they were thrown into the cage of a hungry animal or tied to its back. In another case, the unfortunate man was forced to fight against the beast. Their weapons were a simple spear, and their “armor” was a tunic. In both cases, many spectators gathered for the execution.
Death on the cross
The Phoenicians invented crucifixion - ancient people seafarers who lived in the Mediterranean. Later, this method was adopted by the Carthaginians, and then by the Romans. The Israelis and Romans considered death on the cross to be the most shameful, because it was the way to execute hardened criminals, slaves and traitors. 
Before the crucifixion, the 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 the cross into the ground by the road outside the city or on a hill, the person was lifted with ropes and nailed to a horizontal bar. Sometimes the convict's legs were first crushed with an iron rod. Death occurred from exhaustion, dehydration or pain shock.
After the ban of Christianity in feudal Japan in the 17th century. the crucifix was used against visiting missionaries and Japanese Christians. The execution scene on the cross is present in Martin Scorsese's drama Silence, which tells exactly about this period.
Execution by bamboo
The ancient Chinese were champions of sophisticated torture and execution. One of the most exotic methods of killing is stretching the culprit over growing shoots of young bamboo. Through human body the shoots sprouted for several days, causing incredible suffering to the person being executed. 
Ling-chi
“Ling-chi” is translated into Russian as “sea pike bites.” 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 there were 15-20 such people. 
The essence of “ling chi” is the gradual cutting off of small parts from the body. For example, having cut off one phalanx of a finger, the executioner cauterized the wound and then proceeded to the next one. The court determined how many pieces needed to be cut from the body. The most popular verdict was cutting into 24 parts, and the most notorious criminals were sentenced to 3 thousand cuts. In such cases, the victim was given opium: this way 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 then torture the corpse. This method of execution was practiced for 900 years and was banned in 1905.
Executions of the Middle Ages
Bloody Eagle
Historians question the existence of the Blood Eagle execution, but mention of it is found in Scandinavian folklore. This method was used by residents of 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 he was placed 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 into a shape that resembled an eagle's wings. After this, the lungs were removed from the still living victim and hung on the ribs.
This execution is shown twice in the TV series Vikings with Travis Fimmel (in episode 7 of season 2 and episode 18 of season 4), although viewers noted the contradictions between the serial execution and the one described in the folklore Elder Edda.
"Bloody Eagle" in the TV series "Vikings"
Tearing by trees
Such execution was common in many regions of the world, including Rus' in the pre-Christian period. The victim was tied by the legs to two leaning 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 condemned person into 4 parts. In Rus' they also practiced quartering, but this word meant a completely different execution - the executioner alternately chopped off with an ax first the legs, then the arms, and then the head. 
Wheeling
Wheeling as a form of death penalty was widely used in France and Germany during the Middle Ages. In Russia, this type of execution was also known at a later time - from the 17th to the 19th centuries. The essence of the punishment was that first the guilty person was tied to the wheel, facing the sky, with his arms and legs fastened to the spokes. 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 moved to Persia and spread throughout 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 ancient times and received a second wind in the Middle Ages. This is how they executed mostly counterfeiters. A person caught counterfeiting money was thrown into a cauldron of boiling water, resin or oil. This variety was quite humane - the criminal quickly died from painful 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 from his feet. The welded leg muscles were coming away from the bones, but the man was still alive.This execution is also practiced by extremists in 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 a caustic substance, and then they were thrown whole. And in 2016, militants of the banned organization ISIS dissolved 25 people in a cauldron of acid.
Cement boots
This method is well known to many of our readers from gangster films. Indeed, they killed their enemies and traitors using this 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 body of water and thrown off the boat. Cement boots instantly dragged him to the bottom to feed the fish. 
Death flights
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 man who opposed the tyrant’s regime was pumped full of barbiturates and, in an unconscious state, carried on board an airplane, then thrown down - certainly into the water.
We also invite you to read about the most mysterious deaths in history.
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