assyrian torture methods

The principle of crushing bones and limbs was a popular form of torture in medieval times, mainly because the devices used were simple to design and make. The condemned sailors limbs would be tied and he would be repeatedly plunged beneath the ships keel on one side and hoisted up on the other. A wooden board would be placed on the victims chest and abdomen and heavy stones or iron weights would be gradually placed on top of the board, slowly suffocating the victim. Using an intricate system of tubes and piping, the screams of the roasting prisoner were transmuted into sounds reminiscent of a raging bull. 5 The Torture Of The Survivors. Christ on the Cross, by Carl Bloch (c. 1870). This excruciating method has been used throughout history ever since then, and probably before as well. For example, Neo-Assyrian kings used it to punish rebel leaders. They laid cities to waste, tortured the survivors, and spread terror everywhere they went. If you think you can handle it, then heres a list of ancient torture methods thatll be sure to make your toes curl. These people were usually lucky enough to bring their families. It should be noted, nevertheless, that the Dutch did not intend the practice to be fatal and allowed for respites in the torture to recover. In fact, impalement, if done properly, permits the individual to survive for several days, with the longest known victim suffering for more than eight days. Recorded in England, beginning in 1531 during the reign of Henry VIII, being boiled alive became the legally prescribed method of capital punishment for those convicted of high treason or murder by poison. Flaying of humans is used as a method of torture or execution, depending on how much of the skin is removed. Regarding the latter, it has been claimed the Vestal Virgins of Rome faced immurement should they break their vows of chastity as a trial by ordeal to prove devotion. 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. This is often referred to as flaying alive. In some instances, mercy might be granted allowing for a swifter death, with the wheelset on fire or the condemned beheaded. V)gB0iW8#8w8_QQj@&A)/g>'K t;\ $FZUn(4T%)0C&Zi8bxEB;PAom?W= . All he left behind was a message, boasting of how far hed gone to decimate them. That meant being skinned alive, having noses and ears chopped off, and whatever torments they could imagine. The device is rarely washed, so the victim either dies from impalement or infection. Photo credit: Wikimedia. Ancient Torture. Most famously, bamboo torture was alleged to have been used during World War II by the Japanese Empire against Allied prisoners of war. After the collapse of the Akkadians, Assyria gradually emerged as an independent political power around the 14th century BCE. 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. Assyrian torture method. Louvre, Tello (ancient Girsu). Of those, at least 173 were children, 46 were women. He has been a guest speaker on numerous national radio and television stations and is a five time published author. Make peace with me and come out to me! the envoy called out. Torture methods are known to be brutal ways of enforcing punishment and squeezing out the truth from perpetrators. updated November 28, 2017, 8:39 pm, by 0000001020 00000 n Public Domain. As both accounts were written many years after the events detailed, their veracity cannot be fully ascertained. 434 0 obj<> endobj 0000006055 00000 n Others went further. She was subsequently executed by decapitation. under a series of powerful rulers, becoming one of the world's earliest . (s.`Y fI2q-y6ZS?8,FYMe 8yj3O ,. After the hell that women of all eras have suffered after wars, they and their children would be led off into slavery. It is unclear whether keelhauling was a common practice during the ancient world. 0 endstream endobj 452 0 obj<>/W[1 1 1]/Type/XRef/Index[57 377]>>stream (AFP/GETTY IMAGES). This was a whole engine on wheels. Wikimedia Commons. A millennium later, the Neo-Assyrian King Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BCE) is recorded as impaling surviving Judeans after the Siege of Lachish. I let the leaders of the conquered cities be flayed, and clad the city walls with their skins. [7][8] Hai Rui suggested that his emperor flay corrupt officials. By the time their armies reached your walls, these stories would have spread. Wardah Hajra On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 0000003018 00000 n [4] At St Michael & All Angels' Church in Copford in Essex, England, it is claimed that human skin was found attached to an old door, though evidence seems elusive. [5], In Chinese history, Sun Hao, Fu Sheng and Gao Heng were known for removing skin from people's faces. His writing also appears on a number of other sites, including The Onion's StarWipe and Cracked.com. and remained in use up to the 19th century. The society also used torture to persecute others for their religious affiliations. One Assyrian king recorded sparing some of the people he invaded but only after they shamelessly humbled themselves before him. [citation needed]. Tortured by the Syrian Bashar al-Assad regime in prison for seven years, Muhlis al-Drubi cannot forget the horrors he experienced, including having boiling water poured over him and reverse. Flaying, also known as skinning, was a torture method which originated from 883-859 BC and documented in both carvings and official royal edicts. An illustrated depiction of the heretics fork in practice. 0000025862 00000 n This article has been adapted from its original source. They poured boiling water over us, burned us with cigarette butts.". The methods interpretation was that the skin of the victims back was flayed and pried open like wings. It was believed that Lingchi was a punishment that the accused would have to carry even in the afterlife, where he would not be whole even after death. 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. Whilst historians have questioned whether or not the brazen bull truly existed or was merely an early form of propaganda against an unpopular ruler, it enjoys a prolonged legacy nonetheless. The victim would be repeatedly fed and covered with the honey mixture in order to prolong the torture. The victims bones would be crushed and would sometimes burst through the skin. Should the victim fall asleep or allow their head to droop, then the sharp prongs would begin to pierce their throat and neck. More often than not, though, the surviving men would be put through the hells they used to psychologically terrify the world. This torture method apparently had a long tradition in Scandinavia and a couple of direct accounts were mentioned in old skaldic poems. This is more commonly called skinning. Wikimedia Commons. Instituted as the legal penalty for men convicted of high treason in 1352, although existing unofficially since the reign of Henry III, the condemned man would suffer a litany of successive violations, humiliations, and pains before his eventual death. 0000001565 00000 n References to a similar punishment for piracy existed in the Rhodian Maritime Code dating from 700 CE, but it was not until the Early Modern Period that keelhauling entered into prominence. Diederik Sonoy, an ally of the revolts leader, William of Orange, allegedly used pottery bowls filled with rats to enact the torture and elicit information. 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. A Breast Ripper, on display at a torture museum in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Wrttemberg, Germany (c. 15th century). CONTENTS. My skin peeled off. The act of inflicting physical or psychological pain upon an individual, torture has served both a human as well as a judicial function since our earliest emergence into recorded history. Assyrians can be undoubtedly termed as the Nazis of the biblical world. Behind them, slave masters were always watching, ready to beat anyone who slacked. 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>!);? Sometimes, they got creative. One Assyrian King, named Ashurnasirpal II, has left a whole series of these tablets behind, and the descriptions are positively terrifying. Sometimes, the executioner would be instructed to aim for the convicts heart or neck to cause immediate death. Wikimedia Commons. A ritualized method of torture and execution, the Viking practice of the blood eagle stands among the most brutal and controversial of historical tortures. In some accounts, there were cuts that numbered to 100 (Yuan Dynasty) and some were over 3,000 (Ming Dynasty). "The torturer asked me where I was from. Kesselring, The English Historical Review (September 2001), Judas Cradle: Torture Device, Medievalist.com, Crime and Punishment in England: An Introductory History, John Briggs, Palgrave Macmillan (1996), The Tudor Law of Treason, John Bellamy, Routledge & Kegan Paul (1979), Execution: A Guide to the Ultimate Penalty, Geoffrey Abbott, Summersdale Publishers (2005), Dispensing Justice: Responses to Crime, Baron David James George Hennessy Windlesham, Clarendon Press, 1987, The Instruments of Torture, Michael Kerrigan, Lyons Press (2001), The Spectacle of Suffering: Executions and the Evolution of Repression from a Preindustrial Metropolis to the European Experience, Pieter C. Spierenburg, Cambridge University Press (1984), Rituals of Retribution: Capital Punishment in Germany 1600-1987, Richard J. Evans, Oxford University Press (May 9, 1996), Torture and Democracy, Darius Rejali, Princeton University Press (2007), The Lives They Lived: The Prisoner, Jonathan Mahler, The New York Times (December 25, 2005), The A to Z of Punishment and Torture: From Amputations to Zero Tolerance, Irene Thompson, Book Guild Publishing (2008), The Walled-up Wife: A Casebook, Mircea Elliade and Alan Dundes, University of Wisconsin Press (1996), The Brief History Of The Brazen Bull, John DeVore, Nov 19, 2016. The United States has continued to use the method as recently as 2003, when, under interrogation by the CIA, Manadel al-Jamadi was killed after just 30 minutes at Abu Ghraib Prison. In the year 64 of the Common Era, the Great Fire of Rome devastated large parts of the imperial city. Designed to deter witnesses from repeated the offense of the condemned, crucifixions were deliberately orchestrated events. Abstract and Figures. The men of Assyrian army reported experiences that modern psychologists say show wide-spread symptoms of post-traumatic stress. 0000005655 00000 n 0000002742 00000 n . There are those numbered as being sentenced for arbortion in addition to other grave crimes. wn 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. endstream endobj 435 0 obj<>>>/LastModified(D:20030926134002)/MarkInfo<>>> endobj 437 0 obj[438 0 R 439 0 R 440 0 R] endobj 438 0 obj<>>> endobj 439 0 obj<>>> endobj 440 0 obj<>>> endobj 441 0 obj<>/Font<>/XObject<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC]/ExtGState<>>>/StructParents 0>> endobj 442 0 obj<> endobj 443 0 obj[/ICCBased 449 0 R] endobj 444 0 obj<> endobj 445 0 obj<> endobj 446 0 obj<>stream Conversely, the U.S. has also been victims of the practice, with the late Senator John McCain famously subjected to the technique during the Vietnam War. From here, he was transferred to the Hama military airport, where he was beaten upon arrival, stripped naked, interrogated and tortured. Native Americans flayed their captives to make them suffer for as long as possible. It had an iron-capped ram that swung from chains, letting it crush its way through enemy walls like never before. This was the fate of the rebellious Israelites of the Northern . These showed them skinning their victims alive, blinding them, and impaling them on stakes. From his capital at Ashur, Ashur-uballit extended Assyrian control over the rich farming . Assyrian society was entirely military, with men obliged to fight in the army at any time. 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. In at least one case, an Assyrian king made the women lift their skirts over their heads and march blindly after their captors. Aside from inflicting agonizing pain, one of the main purposes of this method was to inflict severe humiliation upon the victim. He was executed by pressing. Keelhauling, which dates back in 800 B.C. The Assyrian soldiers were trained in siege warfare, battle tactics, and hand-to-hand . The practice of flaying was popularized under the Neo-Assyrian Empire during the 9th century BCE, with carvings dating to the reign of Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BCE) depicting the gruesome details. Using this method of torture would require the victim to be stripped and suspended above the device. All of Assyria was subject to their resettlement policy, which uprooted whole families and moved them across the country. The Ancient Greeks used to punish people by cooking them inside a huge bronze bull. Commonly resulting in the dislocation of the arms and shoulders, the longer-term effects of the method are less visible, causing lifelong nerve, ligament, and tendon damage leading to potential paralysis. 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. Unknown to him, she was sacrificed, with the priest appearing during the festival dinner wearing her skin as part of the ritual. Wikimedia Commons. And, it was described as one of the most cruel and graphic torture methods ever used. Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. Known to have been used as a punishment prior to the Roman civilization, appearing in ancient Persia, Macedon, and Carthage, Alexander the Great famously order the crucifixions of 2,000 survivors of the siege of Tyre in 332 BCE. . His prolonged exposure and his flesh rotting away due to his own filth and the insects devouring him would eventually lead to his horrifying demise. n3kGz=[==B0FX'+tG,}/Hh8mW2p[AiAN#8$X?AKHI{!7. 434 19 When I did not, he hit me with a timing belt. After llas capture at York in 867, they caused the bloody eagle to be carved on the back of lla, and they cut away all of the ribs from the spine, and then they ripped out his lungs. Wikimedia Commons. Searing or cutting the flesh from the body was sometimes used as part of the public execution of traitors in medieval Europe. Since the conflict, questions have habitually been raised concerning whether bamboo is actually capable of inflicting the injuries claimed by survivors. Annemasse. Although women were excluded from these practices and doctors were required to be present, the Inquisition nevertheless enjoyed near limitless authority to inflict suffering upon those entrusted to their custody. Its origin dates back to 530 A.D., And throughout the years, people have come up with new ways to perform these torturous acts probably hoping to obtain the truth efficiently or just to satisfy their sick pleasures. As with all human endeavors, we gradually perfected the art of torture over the centuries, refining the necessary tools to inflict the greatest possible pain upon our unfortunate victims. wG xR^[ochg`>b$*~ :Eb~,m,-,Y*6X[F=3Y~d tizf6~`{v.Ng#{}}jc1X6fm;'_9 r:8q:O:8uJqnv=MmR 4 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. 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. If you kissed another mans wife, they would cut off your lower lip with an axe. The fragment above is part of the Stele of Vultures. 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 . It was one of the ideas that made Assyria so strong. When they came to your town, the men at the gates were vicious and battle-hardened. empires.. Assyria was located in the northern part of Mesopotamia, which corresponds to most parts of modern-day Iraq as well as parts of Iran . Similarly, neck traps prevented the victim from adjusting the angle of their neck to a more comfortable position. The king of Urartu, upon hearing the Assyrian army approach, stabbed himself in the chest rather than face them. Whilst some intended to kill, albeit resulting in slow, torturous deaths, others were intended to merely maim and hurt without fatal outcomes. The miseries of war: No. The captives I have killed by the sword and flung on the dung heap. 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. 1p18i!J 8? <<7a948a1f817a16499a21d19a53bed43a>]>> 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. The ancient Assyrian were among the most ruthless of all ancient warriors. Every young man was expected to train as a warrior and be ready to fight. %%EOF Impalement, as a method of torture and execution, is the penetration of a human by an object such as a stake, pole, spear, or hook, often by the complete or partial perforation of the torso.It was particularly used in response to "crimes against the state" and regarded across a number of cultures as a very harsh form of capital punishment and recorded in myth and art. Every person watching their chariots approach would know that, compared to the fate the Assyrian army brought, death would be a relief. The Blood Eagle is a haunting form of execution used by the Vikings. Ejaz Khan The people of a conquered nation would be spread about the kingdom, living alongside of people from foreign lands instead of their own countrymen to keep them packing together and staging a revolt. Any outsider who would gaze upon the monument would know not to mess with Lagash. The victim would either be rocked or dropped repeatedly onto the device, and the torture would usually be prolonged into several days. The Assyrians were so brutal that their military campaigns even put themselves through hell. Through the midst of that city I dug canals, I flooded its site with water, and the very foundations thereof I destroyed. The former, stemming from Elizabethan England, is based on claims the Tower of London contained a Rats Dungeon wherein a cell blow high-water mark would draw in rats from the River Thames and victims would have fleshtorn from the arms and legs. The purpose of the stele is to display the power and ferocity of the Lagashistes. Captured soldiers were supposedly tied above infant bamboo shoots, which, over the course of several days, would grow at a rapid pace and pierce the prisoners. The executioner would then use a large wooden spiked wheel to mutilate the convicts body, starting from his legs. startxref The "strappado", also known as "corda", is a longstanding, simple, but nonetheless effective method of torture involving tying a victim's hands behind their back. Usually, a cage filled with rats would be placed on top of the restrained victims stomach. These kind of artifacts are very common. Assyrian art shows a parade of their slaves chained to large stones, being forced to drag massive rocks like mules. updated March 25, 2018, 6:05 pm, by