WARNING: Disturbing Images and Statements. Viewer Discretion is Advised
Throughout the history, people have devised a wide variety of ingeniously hideous methods of execution. In those days, it was an everyday thing to see someone executed by the authorities. Across the world, each and every country had creative ways of delivering capital punishment. Here are 10 of the most cruel and hideous ways to die.
10 – Execution By Elephant
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Execution by elephant was a common method of capital punishment in South and Southeast Asia, particularly in India, where Asian elephants were used to crush, dismember or torture captives in public executions. Execution by elephant was witnessed by Francois Bernier, a French traveler. In this method, the elephant was trained to slice criminals with blades that were fitted to their tusks.
9 – Hanging, Drawing, And Quartering
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A convicted traitor was fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where he was then hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and Chopped into Four pieces. Often, the head and quarters of the criminal would be parboiled to prevent them from rotting and displayed on the city’s gates as a warning for everyone to witness. This sadistic method of execution first originated in 1241 to punish William Maurice, who had been convicted of piracy. The Treason Act of 1814 formally removed the disemboweling part of this method of execution and replaced it with hanging.
8 –Sawing
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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.
7 – Death by a Thousand Cuts(Ling Chi)
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Originated in china, this was one of the most brutal execution methods ever fashioned. It was in use roughly from the year 900, until it was banned in 1905. It was a punishment reserved only for the harshest of crimes, such as treason and fratricide. it is one of the few execution methods on this list for which photos of it being practiced actually exist.
6 –Boiling
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Execution by boiling is a method of execution in which a person is killed by being immersed in a boiling liquid. While not as common as other methods of execution, boiling to death has been used in many parts of Europe and Asia. Sometimes, the executioner controlled the speed of boiling by raising and lowering the victim to the cauldron using a system of ropes.
5 – The Breaking Wheel
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The execution wheel was typically a large wooden spoked possible through the broken limbs, or tied to the wheel. The survival time after being “wheeled” or “broken” could be extensive. Accounts exist of a 14th-century murderer who remained conscious for three days after undergoing the punishment. The primary goal of the first act was the agonizing mutilation of the body, not death. Therefore, the most common form would start with breaking the leg bones.In the second act, the body was braided into another wooden spoked wheel, which was possible through the broken limbs, or tied to the wheel. The wheel was then erected on a mast or pole, like a crucifixion.
4 – Impalement
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Impalement, as a method of execution and torture, is the penetration of a human by an object such as a stake, pole, spear, or hook. Often used during the Middle Ages, Criminal was be forced to sit on a thick, sharpened wooden pole. The pole was then slowly raised upright and the criminal was left to gradually slide further down the pole only by his or her own weight. The pole then emerged through victim’s chest, shoulder or neck. Sometimes, it could take more than three days for a person to finally die, in slow and painful way.
3 – Flaying
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Being skinned alive has got to be one of the most horrifying forms of torture imaginable. It’s a bloody, painful, and slow process, and you’ll be conscious the entire time. Still, maybe you’re morbidly curious about exactly what being skinned alive feels like. In most used method of flaying, person’s hands were tied above his or her head, while the executioner gradually cut off all the skin using a very knife, starting at the face. Often, attempts were made to keep the skin intact. Another method involved severely burning the victim, and then gradually peeling his or her skin off.
2 –Rat Torture
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Rat torture is the use of rats to torture a victim by encouraging them to attack and eat the victim alive. originally used in the medieval China. Described as ”the most brutal torture technique ever devised”, it employed live rats eating through the victim’s flesh. Only a small percentage of victims survived this gruesome procedure. Most of them died due to intense internal bleeding and septic shock from severely infected wounds.
1 –Brazen Bull
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The brazen bull, bronze bull, or Sicilian bull, was allegedly a torture and execution device designed in ancient Greece. The bull was hollow, crafted entirely from bronze, and it had a door in one side. The criminals were locked inside the bull, and a fire was set under the statue. The fire heated the metal until the criminal inside died from severe burns. The scorched bones were then often made into bracelets and sold at market.
