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Cruel and Unusual Punishments: 15 Types of Torture

The human mind has long been capable of dreaming up new and terrible ways to punish alleged transgressors, villains, witches, and anyone else who was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We’re all familiar with the old standbys: hanging, burning, stoning. Yawn. What if someone really wrongs you? Like steals your sheep or somehow must have caused a crop failure or something because they gave you a shifty look that one time? Throughout the ages some extremely brutal methods of torture and execution have come and gone. And there are a few that have not yet gone, too. Read on about these 15 terrifying types of torture, but please don’t try this at home.

15Upright jerker

GK Bloemsma
The upright jerker was an interesting twist on a classic execution method. Hanging, while it is a true standby all around the world, leaves much to be desired in terms of effectiveness. Depending on the weight of the person, rope, trap door, and numerous other factors, it can be a very slow or awkward way to die. The natural solution? Do it backwards! The upright jerker was a modified hanging system that used heavy weights and pulleys to quickly jerk the condemned into the air. It was hoped this would be a more effective way to break the neck quickly...but it didn’t always work as planned.


White cliffs of Dover, southeastern Kent, Eng.
© Jaroslaw Grudzinski/Shutterstock.com
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when someone wrongs you? Throw them off a cliff! This has been a simple solution to unwanted nuisances for centuries. While it’s largely fallen out of fashion, Iran still employs this method for state executions.

13Crushed by elephant

Asian elephant (Elephas maximus).
E.S. Ross
This is a weirdly specific method of execution, but you can’t argue with its effectiveness. As you might guess, it was common in areas where elephants are naturally found, primarily in South and Southeast Asia. Elephants were often trained in order to ensure the trampling was as brutal as possible.

12Ling chi

Knife blade made of Damascus steel.
© vaklav/Shutterstock.com
Ling chi, also known as "slow slicing" or "death by a thousand cuts" was a method of torturous execution practiced in China. The condemned was tied to a post and bits of skin and limbs were gradually removed one by one, usually culminating in a final cut to the heart or decapitation. It was used as early as the 10th century, and continued for nearly a thousand years. Luckily it was banned in 1905.

11Blood eagle

The Granger Collection, New York
The blood eagle comes from Nordic legends of Viking executions. The condemned’s back was slashed so as to give access to the ribs, which were then broken and twisted upward to look like wings. To add injury to injury, salt was poured into the wound. And as a final blow, the lungs were pulled out and draped over the rib-wings for effect. Thankfully, there is debate about whether or not this practice actually existed, or if it’s just the stuff of legend. Either way, it’s terrifying that someone took the time to think this up.


Types of keels
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Keelhauling was a type of punishment specifically for sailors, dreamt up by the Dutch navy in the late 16th century. Offenders were tied with rope and dragged underwater from one end of the ship to the other. While many died from the practice due to drowning or internal injuries, in theory it wasn’t always meant to be fatal. As a bonus, men who were punished by keelhauling were often cut mercilessly by barnacles on the ship’s bottom (keel) and carried the scars with them for life. If they lived, that is.


Water at its boiling point.
© Getty Images
Nowadays, boiling alive is a fate reserved for shellfish. But centuries ago it was a common method of execution from East Asia to England. The condemned was stripped and then placed in a vat or pot of boiling liquid, usually water, oil, or tar. Or, for a more gruesome experience, the offender could be placed in cool liquid and then heated to boiling. Records from the reign of Henry VIII show that some people were boiled for up to two hours before they finally died.

8Rat torture

Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus).
John H. Gerard
Rat torture apparently lives on in the minds of creative types, as it has been featured recently in the film 2 Fast 2 Furious and in the TV series Game of Thrones. In this terrifying (and, I’ll admit, creative) form of torture, a hungry and/or diseased rat is placed in a bucket on the victim’s bare stomach or chest. The bucket is then heated from the outside, and the agitated rat chews its way through the unfortunate person’s flesh...and any organs it happens to encounter on its way out.

7Execution vans

Gurney used for lethal injection of death penalty convicts
China has made capital punishment shockingly efficient. It’s little surprise, really, considering that China conducts the most executions per year of any country in the world. A variety of crimes are punishable by death, including tax fraud, arson, and prostitution. Many executions in China are now performed in mobile execution units, vans that are equipped with restraints and drugs necessary for lethal injection. The vans, which look like typical police vans, have been on the road for about a decade. There are dozens of them all over the country, dipensing lethal justice closer to the scenes of crimes. Not only are they cheaper than more traditional facilities, Chinese officials say, but they are more humane than the other preferred method of execution—death by firing squad.


A marshmallow roasting on a stick.
Nina Hale
The gridiron was basically a grill. For roasting people. As one might expect, it looked like an iron grid, and was placed over a fire or burning coals. Some people were even basted in oil first, to ensure proper broiling. But take heart, they weren’t eaten afterward. Probably.

5Drawing and quartering

Hanged man, the 12th card of the major arcana.
Mary Evans Picture Library
Drawing and quartering is one of the most infamous methods of cruel and unusual punishment. It’s still difficult to believe it’s an actual thing that was conceived by actual humans and happened to actual unfortunate souls. The punishment was first doled out in England in the 13th century. The accused was drawn—tied to a horse and dragged to the gallows—and then usually hanged, maybe disemboweled, or beheaded. Afterward, the condemned was quartered, i.e. had his body split in quarters, sometimes by tying each limb to a different horse and having them run in opposite directions. This punishment was reserved for those guilty of treason, and was abolished in 1867.


Cross section of the wrist showing the carpal bones.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Strappado is an uncomfortable form of torture that, unlike many of the others on this list, doesn’t necessarily end in death. In strappado, the guilty party is strung up by the wrists, behind the head. The awkward angle is pretty much guaranteed to cause an agonizing dislocation of the shoulders, but if it doesn’t weights may be added. Thought to have originated in medieval times during the Inquisition, strappado has been used into the 21st century.

3White torture

While the term "white torture" can mean any psychological torture in general, the meaning here is more literal. White torture is a type of sensory deprivation in which a prisoner’s cell, clothes, and even food are entirely white. Guards wear all white, lights are kept on 24 hours a day, and no words are spoken. No color is seen. It was documented in the case of Amir Fakhravar, who was arrested in his native Iran and subjected to white torture for some 8 months in 2004. While the physical pain of sensory deprivation is minimal compared to other tortures on this list, the psychological damage is beyond compare. Fakhravar was quoted as saying when he was released, he was not a normal person anymore, and could no longer remember even the faces of his parents.

2Poena cullei

© Luis M. Seco/Shutterstock.com
The punishment of the sack, or poena cullei, was another oddly specific form of excution. It was used in ancient Rome in cases of parricide (or killing one’s parents or other close family member). The condemned was sewn into a leather sack with a number of animals, including a dog, a monkey, a snake, and a rooster. Then the whole bag was tossed into a body of water. If the animals didn’t kill the alleged murderer, drowning surely would.


A maggot emerges from an apple.
Steve Taylor—Stone/Getty Images
Scaphism was one of the worst and most painful, skin-crawling methods of torture. It was described by the Greeks as a punishment used by the Persians, and if they are to be believed, those Persians were insane. In this form of execution, the accused was trapped between two boats (or in a hollowed-out tree trunk) and force-fed milk and honey. Okay, that part doesn’t sound so bad. But the milk-and-honey diet eventually caused horrible diarrhea, which stayed within the wooden enclosure. The unfortunate condemned was smeared with more milk and honey and left out in the sun or near still water, where bugs would be attracted to the muck and rot and sweetness. The person would inevitably die--either of dehydration, exposure, or bite and sting wounds.
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