- If you want to see genius at work, just ask people how they’d like to hurt their enemies.
Uh-oh. You messed up bad, and now those in power want to punish you. And they really want to make it sting.
One of the most fascinating elements of humanity is our capacity for incredibly cruelty. People tend to get strangely creative when we want to inflict endless agony on others.
It’d be impressive if it wasn’t so downright horrifying.
Here are seven examples of incomprehensibly cruel and unusual punishment used throughout history.
DISCLAIMER: Sensitive readers should stop here. Go read these cute animal stories instead of exploring the depths of human depravity.
1. Immurement
Out of sight, out of mind, right? If you notice a dust bunny on the floor, just swipe it under the rug and no one will know it was ever there.
Immurement does the same to people. Only, instead of getting swept under a rug, they get encased alive within a wall.
Although similar to your usual punishment of leaving someone to rot in prison, immurement adds several degrees of cruelty on top of it. In addition to being exposed to thirst, hunger, cold, and possible lack of oxygen, the walled-in person would usually be enclosed so tightly they couldn’t lie down. They would have to stand until their legs gave up—and then keep standing until they eventually died.
Immurement might be most famous from horror stories, like Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado. It has been used in reality too, though. For instance, Rome’s vestal virgins would be punished with immurement for breaking their chastity vows.
2. Death by a Thousand Cuts
Lingchi is a Chinese term that literally means “slow slicing.” It refers to a form of punishment, torture, and execution better known in the West as death by a thousand cuts.
The punished person would be strapped to a rack, tree, wall, or something else, usually in a public space. Then, the torturer(s) would grab a sharp knife and slice off a bit of flesh from the victim.
This would go on and on and on, sometimes hours or even days between each slice. Sometimes, the victim would be allowed to go free after a sufficient number of cuts. Other times, they would endure the slicing until they died.
The Chinese were aware of how incredibly cruel lingchi was so it was mostly reserved for the most serious of crimes, like high treason. This method of torture was first recorded in the 900s and it wasn’t outlawed until 1,000 years later in 1905.
3. White Torture
Not all horrendous methods of torture and punishment are ancient. White torture is a relatively recent invention, showing that creative cruelty is alive and well.
White torture is a form of sensory deprivation and isolation. The victim is dressed in all white and locked in a white, completely soundproof room with lights installed so that there are as few shadows as possible.
The room is furnished to have smooth, textureless surfaces to deprive the victim of the sense of touch. Even the food they get served is white and flavorless, often plain white rice, to ensure even their taste buds suffer from lack of stimulation.
White torture has been used extensively in Iran on political dissidents, but other regimes have been accused of using it as well.
4. Poena Cullei
Poena Cullei is a Latin phrase meaning the “penalty of the sack.” It’s a bizarre ancient Roman method of execution that makes you wonder what was going on in the head of whoever came up with it.
The victim would be placed in a leather sack. An assortment of various live animals, such as dogs, snakes, monkeys, or chickens would then be throwing into the sack with him.
After the sack was sewn shut, the executioners would then toss it into water, typically a lake or river. The victim was doomed to die, either by being torn apart by the panicked animals or drowning.
5. Keelhauling
How did pirates punish disobedient or mutinous crew members? If you thought they made them walk the plank, you’d be wrong. Instead, they preferred keelhauling.
A keelhauled person would be attached to a long rope that widthwise run around the ship and tossed overboard. The rest of the crew would then pull the rope, dragging the victim along the bottom of the ship until they surfaced on the other side.
Typically, the keelhauled crew member would quickly drown or die from smashing against the ship. Those were the fortunate victims.
Even if you survived the dive, you’d have your body shredded by the razor-sharp shells of barnacles that inevitably grew on the ship’s hull. The wounds would most likely fester and get infected, leading to a slow and agonizing death.
6. Crucifixion
Most people are familiar with the concept of crucifixion, what with it being an integral part of the Christian faith. However, few realize just how horrific this method of execution was.
Having nails hammered through your feet and arms was nowhere the worst part of the experience. The real horror started after the cross was lifted up.
Studies into crucifixion have shown that the position of hanging on the cross makes it incredibly hard to breathe. To be able to draw a breath, you’d have to raise yourself up with great effort using your nailed-through limbs.
Eventually, if you live long enough, you will exhaust yourself. You will then be left to hang there, dead tired, until you asphyxiate.
Although crucifixion is in the West mostly associated with the Romans, they weren’t the only ones to use it, nor did they invent crucifixion. It was known to the Greeks and Persians before Rome ever existed, and it has been popular in Asia as well.
Honorable Mention: Brazen Bull
The Brazen Bull has to be one of the most gruesome inventions humans have ever made. The good news is that it may not be real.
There are records from ancient Greece and Rome of hollow, bull-shaped torture device made of brass. The victim would be locked inside the metal bull and the executioners would set a fire under it, heating the metal and eventually roasting the trapped victim alive.
According to most stories, there was an acoustic mechanism in the bull’s head that transformed the victim’s screams of agony into something that sounded like the bellows of an angry bull. You know, so that the crowd watching the execution would be entertained.
Despite the stories, archeologists have never found an actual Brazen Bull, so it might be that the thing is purely imaginary. Then again, it’s a strangely specific kind of device for someone to come up with just for a story.