10 Ancient Torture Methods from Around the World – part 2

Man is the most intelligent and social amongst all animals on the planet. Proof of this is the amazing technological development made in every field possible, the development of so many languages all over different arts of the world, and the ability to stand up to the most adverse of conditions, both natural and man-made. Over time, man has managed to show his superiority over almost all the creatures of the world. However, if we step just, say around 500 hundred years back in time, we would realize that man probably had traits that are more animalistic until then. This time was one of the cruelest, most gruesome, and astonishing of all periods of human behavior.

Going by the standards of our relatively relaxed and comfortable lives today, us living in the middle ages or in the ancient times would seem nothing less than going through all the different layers of hell itself. Torture, in the medieval ages, did not just refer to physical mistreatment, but also to the worst kind of treatment psychologically. Many historians and researchers who put forward the statement that torture methods in the ancient and medieval times were not that horrendous seem to ignore the fact that the methods employed to punish people then were, to say, in the simplest of words, demonic.  Here are some more of the crazy methods employed by our ancestors from the ancient and the middle ages.

The Brazen Bull from Ancient Greece:

This device came into use by the ancient Greeks and was quite possibly the most gruesome form of torture by a mechanism for that age. It all started when Perillos, the Athenian brass-worker suggested to Phalaris, Tyrant of Agrigentum, that the best way to get a person tortured was a form of heating things up in a very brazen manner. He molded a hollow bull, totally out of brass, which had a door on one side from where the condemned would be put in. Once in, the condemner would light a fire under the bull, leading to the metallic bull getting hotter by the second. The person condemned to this kind of punishment would eventually start roasting because of the heat. Imagine the heat that the bull would be in – making a person roast is not the easiest of tasks just because of its dry heat. The smoke that came out of the person roasted in such a manner would leave the bull in a big incense cloud. What made this bull so terrible was the science employed for the noise coming from the bull. Confused? When a person was being roasted in such a manner, it was obvious that the person would scream out in pain. But it was not a scream you would hear. The head of the bull was modified in such a way that when the scream escaped from the head of the bull, it sounded like a highly enraged bull.

Heretic’s Fork:

This device, as you may have already guessed was used against those who were believed to be spreading witchcraft and heresy. Heresy was a “problem” that heavily hounded the Roman Catholic Church in the middle ages. This device would make one wonder what was the Church doing, if people were ready to undergo this form of pain and torture. This is how the heretic’s fork came to be used: the device had two fork-like devices, facing opposite directions, with a strap in the middle. When the strap was put around the person’s neck, one of the forks would jut into the flesh of the neck, and the other would push into the chest. What made this device extremely torturous was the fact that, as it did no affect any of the vital parts of the body, it would only prolong the sufferer’s misery. Eventually though, with the forks entering different parts of the neck and chest would eventually lead to his or her death. As can be guessed, the person suffering this kind of punishment had his or her hands tied behind the back.

In part 3 of the series we will see some more of the devices that were used by people of the earlier ages, to torture and eventually kill people.