Top 8 Cruel Punishments in The Ancient World, You Never Want to know | Voofacts

Warning: Disturbing Content Ahead!

In order to punish prisoners in ancient times, countless creepy methods were devised. Here I tried to list Some of them, they all are cruel in their own terms.

1.Lingchi (Slow Slicing)

Lingchi, also known as “death by a thousand cuts”, was a brutal method of execution used in China.

Executioners were tasked with making as many cuts as possible and removing slices of flesh without killing the victim. 

This practice started in the 10th century and was outlawed in 1905, making it one of the few execution methods for which photos of it being practiced actually exist! google it yourself!

2. Impalement

Impalement involved hammering a sharpened stick into a criminal’s body.

A stick is hammered via the anus (or vagina) before then hoisting up the criminal and letting gravity pull the criminal slowly back down to the ground. 

The stick would eventually protrude through the victim’s head or shoulders or back, killing him, but not before he suffered hours of humiliating, excruciating pain as a sharpened stick tore slowly through his body.

Ouch!

3. Rat Torture

This is the use of rats to torture a victim by encouraging them to attack and eat the victim alive and A bunch of rats are placed on a criminal’s stomach, chest, or buttocks and covered with a pottery bowl, with its open side face-down. 

Then, hot charcoal was placed on the other end of the bowl, 

so that the rats would have no choice but to eat through the victim if they wanted to escape the heat.

4. The Blood Eagle

This alleged method of execution believed to have been performed by the Vikings included initially tying the victim’s hands and legs to prevent any movement. 

The torturer would then stab the victim up toward their rib cage. Every single rib would be carefully severed from the spine with an ax or some other sharp tool. 

It is believed salt would sometimes be rubbed into the wounds to increase pain. Finally, the lungs would be pulled out of the body to make it appear as if the victim literally had a pair of “wings.”

5. Judas Cradle

Although more widely used in Medieval Europe, the purpose of the Judas Cradle was to obtain various kinds of confessions by forcing the nude victim onto a chair with a pyramid-shaped seat.  The victim’s feet would often be tied together in such a way that moving one leg would increase pain by forcing the other leg to move along with it. 

The torturer was able to raise and lower the victim with a rope and pulley system, which drove the penetrating part deeper into the victim. 

6. The Brazen Bull: Baked, Cooked, or Boiled Alive:

Not one for the squeamish. The Ancient Greeks used to punish people by cooking them inside a huge bronze bull.

A criminal was locked inside the device via a door on its side and a fire was then lit underneath, slowly burning the victim to death.

Reportedly, the execution method served as entertainment for passersby.

The bull had small metal pipes fitted into its nose. As the victim screamed in pain, their cries played through it as a low bellow.

St. Lawrence, one of seven deacons who served under Pope Sixtus II, died on August 10, in 258 A.D. According to legend, he was “roasted” alive on a grill—but maintaining his good humor to the end, he is reputed to have said during his ordeal, “Turn me over. I’m done on this side.”

7. Flaying

Flaying — better known as “skinning alive” — has a long and grotesque history. Records of the practice exist as far back as the Neo-Assyrian Empire (beginning in 911 B.C.), 

but it has cropped up in most civilizations at one time or another, including Medieval Europe ( for traitors) and in the ritual human sacrifices made by the Aztecs.

It involves slowly, excruciatingly slicing the skin from the body while keeping the victim alive for as long as possible (and when feasible, removing the skin intact).

8. Sawing alive:

The term “death by sawing” indicates the act of sawing a living person in half. 

The Roman Empire had a preference to saw victims in half horizontally, while the Chinese were more inventive by hanging their victims by their feet and sawing vertically down the body. 

This method was more effective in making victims suffer because there would be better blood flow to the brain, prolonging consciousness.

In medieval and ancient times these tortures were used to extract evidence and info from culprits. Public execution was used as a warning to prevent others from committing crimes and setting an example for justice.