thecontaminated.com did a hell of a writeup covering 20 of the most gruesome torture devices from mankind’s history (I’m sure there are others not covered in this post that I would really rather not know about).
Looking at some of these torture devices makes me wince… makes me wonder… how did one human being do this to another so willingly? Are we really so malleable and fundamental understandings of right/wrong good/bad so non-intrinsic that someone could do something like this without a second thought, and worst, end up liking it as a “days work”?
For example, two I found particularly brutal:
On the left you have “The Boots” which is described as a pair of essentially wooden frames that go around your legs, up to the knee, where each frame is comprised of segments that can shift Right or Left independently of the other segments. Allowing the torturer to stand to the side, and hit the segments with a sledge hammer, moving it right or left effectively shattering the shin bones in your legs. The idea was that the torture would stop when your legs were simply skin-bags holding your bone fragments from your shins. (I’m going to vomit)
The second picture is Water Torture, apparently a favorite of Japanese guards in WWII. The idea is that a tube is snaked up your nose, down into your stomach where water is pumped in so fiercely that your stomach becomes distended. At that point the guards begin to stomp on and kick you in the stomach, until your stomach lining rips and you eventually bleed to death internally.
There are some really fucked up things in here… like “The Cat’s Paw” is just a metal rake used to pull the skin off of someone’s body while they are strung up… there is also a noticeably sexual spin on most of these torture devices, especially the ones for women.
Then these are #2 and #3 on the list, which I found worse than #1…
In the first one you have… well impalement. Reminiscent of the scene from Cannibal Holocaust, the idea is that the person is impaled, through the anus/vagina up through/out their mouth… the part I found vomit-inducing is that some people don’t die for that “writhing around for up to a day before dying”.
Then lastly we have “The Saw”… not too much left to the imagination with the picture. People are simply hung upside down, then cut in half. The sickest fucking part about this is that they are hung upside down in order to keep the blood around the brain, so they live longer during the experience.
Seriously?
Back in the middle ages they knew enough about human anatomy, god knows from shit like this, to know that would keep someone alive longer so they could torture them more?
And keep in mind almost none of these techniques are interrogation techniques, their purpose isn’t to extract information… it’s just to fucking mangle someone with a hammer, saw or piece of metal in order to kill them.
Sorry for the decidedly dark post… I really feel sick now.




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November 12th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Humor and Fun!
November 12th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I know… I had to file it under my catch-all category, so I didn’t have to create a “torture and sadism” category… but atleast I got the tags right
December 8th, 2007 at 4:17 am
Decidedly gross. Haven’t felt this ill since I did a tour round London’s clink jail and saw all the “instruments” in person….
December 8th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Oh wow… do you have any shots of this stuff? I imagine I would feel quiet sick myself…
January 17th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
If you think this stuff is gross, I’m doing a project on torture. The ‘Pear of Anguish’ was inserted into a persons anus, (b/c homosexuality) vagina,(b/c abortion or adultry) or mouth (b/c blaspmey). Attached to this pear shaped object was four flaps which came apart on each side to slowly rip apart the skin and mutilate the insides. If you didn’t die from that alone you would die from infection because they never cleaned it
January 18th, 2008 at 8:11 am
un-fucking-believable the stuff people think of to maul each other…
This is one of those topics that I’m morbidly curious about, but cringe at the more I learn.
Sarah is your project something that can be shared? I’m sure folks would find it morbidly interesting as well.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
oh crap im seriously sick now
March 4th, 2008 at 12:25 am
i was wondering if you had any more information on water torture, i have to do a project on it but i cant find much info
March 4th, 2008 at 12:31 am
WAT THE HELL!!! this is soo weird!!!!!!!!
rach!!
May 12th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
0mg that stuf was like so gross ewl now i want to study more about medieval torture
June 17th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I really enjoyed your site especially the pictures of the cats paw, it looked fun!
Cheers
June 18th, 2008 at 2:31 am
Is it fun, when you are laid to it and beign tortured?
June 18th, 2008 at 8:48 am
… Freeman I’m really hoping you were a spam-bot, because if you think that looks fun, I really hope we never meet in real life
June 25th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I LOVE IT!!!!!
July 21st, 2008 at 1:33 am
well done could use more pics
July 21st, 2008 at 7:13 am
claire,
I know what you mean… this stuff is so damn morbid but still interesting. The old-style sketch drawings from old-books really sells the whole “nasty, medieval, undereducated, torture” vibe doesn’t it?