Evil Punishments Designed to be Worse Than Death

A criminal who crosses the line could find themselves facing the gallows or the headsman at any point through history - although “crossing the line” could mean anything from murder to annoying the King. However, in many places, the death penalty isn’t the worst thing the courts have to offer. Here are fifteen of the evil punishments worse than death administered through history.

#15. Flaying Let’s turn the clock back to ancient Assyria, roughly 850 BCE. The ruler, Ashurnasirpal II, was known for his brutal treatment of captives and rebel leaders, but one method created a special dread for the victims.

Using a special set of knives, the torturers would slowly remove the unfortunate victim’s skin - and this was something they practiced a lot. They not only knew how to remove the skin smoothly, but how to keep the victim alive for as long as possible. To ensure this, they would start the cutting at the lower legs, thighs, and buttocks - all areas without proximity to vital organs, making it more likely that the victim would remain in agonizing pain for longer without bleeding out.

This was a highly effective form of torture, and if the torturers wanted information, they were likely to get it quickly. A victim who gave their captives what they wanted could survive the beginning stages of a flaying - but the risk of infection would be high. But for most, it was a prolonged and terrible execution.

How long could someone survive a flaying? The combination of blood loss, infections, shock from the extreme pain, and hypothermia from exposure to the elements without the protection of the skin means most people could survive a few days at most after being flayed. The skilled Assyrian torturers knew how to remove the skin smoothly, often keeping it in one piece for it to be displayed as a horrible flag of warning.

They were clearly proud of their skill - the torture is immortalized in many of their art pieces from the era. And while the Assyrians eventually passed into history, the method became less common but didn’t die out - it was a common method of torturing religious heretics in empires for more than a thousand years. And while using it on a human today would be…frowned upon, it’s still a common skill for hunters who want to keep an animal’s pelt intact for use.

But that’s nothing compared to what the Persians came up with #14. The Boats Flaying usually kills people after a short period of intense torture, but other methods keep the pain going for a lot longer. When a soldier named Mithridates murdered the brother of the king, the king wanted him to suffer.

Sure, the King’s brother had been attempting a coup, but it didn’t matter. He ordered the soldier to be taken to the boats. This wasn’t exile - it was something much worse.

The condemned would be taken to a pair of boats, with one lying on top of the other. Holes would be cut in the boat for the victim’s head, hands, and feet, so he would be trapped inside. But then the real torture begins, and it starts with - dessert?

The condemned man is force-fed a mixture of milk and honey, pumping him full of the sweet mixture until he’s near the point of nausea, and left in the sun with the sticky substance drying all over his face and body. And from there, nature takes its course. The sweet mixture starts attracting insects, who land on the man’s body and begin sucking it off him - creating a constant feeling of irritation.

Joining the flies will be bees and wasps, which will painfully sting him. And inside the boat, the man’s bloated body will release excrement - which will attract worms and other vermin. Inside the darkened boat, they’ll start biting at his body and eventually burrowing in - leading him to die a slow, painful death from his body being consumed by vermin.

This technique seems to have been only used in Persia, although it horrified the Greco-Roman historian Plutarch so much that he made a special mention of it in his biography of the sadist king who invented it. Was it just one man’s mad creation - or was this a common fate for criminals and traitors in Persia? The answer may be lost to history.

It wasn’t the only time animals were used to bring death. #13. Poena Cullei Roman law was one of the most advanced systems of law the world had ever seen at the time - and that also meant the judges could get a little more creative.

When a judge had a suspect in front of him who had been convicted of killing his father, he decided he deserved more than just a simple execution - and there would be some surprising supporting characters in the mix. First, the convict would be severely whipped, and his head would be covered in a sack. At which point, he would be sewn up into a large leather sack.

But he wouldn’t be the only one in the sack - he would be joined by a collection of live animals, none of them friendly. At which point, the whole collection would be thrown into the water to drown, with the idea that the animals would savagely attack the unfortunate man in their panic as they all sank down to their watery deaths. No word on if the animals were convicted of anything.

But what animals were chosen for this terrible ritual? This varies, but the one thing that seems consistent is that they were all capable of causing pain. One common choice was a rooster, whose beak and talons are capable of dealing out a lot of domage quickly.

Also common was a venomous snake, who is more likely to bite when panicked. Not even man’s best friend was safe - a wild dog was a common addition. The fourth varies, but several reports point to a monkey being included - which might seem like an odd choice, unless you’ve been attacked by them and seen how quickly they bite and claw.

One thing’s for sure - this wasn’t a role any of them were auditioning for. While this was mostly a Roman invention, it’s reported that it was revived to a certain extent in Medieval Germany. There, only a cat and dog were used, and they fought like - well, you know.

Unlike the other forms of execution, this one wasn’t about prolonging the torture of the victim. It was simply about making those last few minutes before drowning as horrible as possible. But no Roman execution method was more infamous than this one.

#12. Crucifixion It’s one of the most famous images in religious history - the Christian messiah Jesus being nailed to the cross for angering the Roman authorities. But while it’s most associated with religious martyrdom now, it was a common Roman execution method - so common that religious texts refer to thieves and other criminals sentenced to hang alongside Jesus.

And whether you were a rebel Rabbi or a common thief, there were few worse ways to die. It served not just as a slow death, but as a warning to others - the crosses were placed in a public square, and the condemned were frequently jeered and tormented by onlookers as they died a slow death. But unlike many of the other methods in this list, crucifixion didn’t deal a fatal injury - it just set them up to die from other factors like blood loss and asphyxiation.

And the torture started early. The ritual would start with the condemned being forced to bear the heavy wooden cross on their back, often while being whipped. After the cross was placed, they would be nailed to it through their wrists and hung from it.

Sometimes the feet would be nailed as well, although evidence isn't consistent. With their arms splayed out to the side, they would be left to hang for anywhere from hours to days. Because their whole body weight was held by the arms, the typical cause of death would be trouble breathing due to the pressure on the lungs.

However, elements like heart failure, dehydration, or infection from the wounds inflicted by the crucifixion and whippings could also spell the end of the convict. However long they lasted, it would be an agonizing end. But because this execution method isn’t immediately fatal and due to its religious association, today a small group of zealots chooses to have themselves temporarily crucified as a penance ritual.

At least it’s ancient history as a punishment, right? Not quite - it was used in places like Japan and Burma as late as the 1800s, with some isolated reports of it being used to torture prisoners of war during World War II. It wasn’t the only method that stood the test of time.

#11. Immurement Sometimes, the most horrible thing to do to someone is to do…nothing. One of the most ancient methods of torture was to take a convict and wall them in alive somewhere and then just…walk away.

Out of sight, out of mind for those dealing out the punishment. But for the condemned, they’re left alone in the dark, with nothing but their mind to keep them company as they slowly die a painful death due to either dehydration or asphyxiation - depending on how much air there is in the confined space. If the condemned is buried alive in a coffin - as has happened accidentally to people wrongly declared dead - they’ll likely be dead within hours from lack of air.

But if they’re kept in a larger space, it’s likely to be a fairly longer and more painful affair. While this was used commonly as a method of execution, it has also been used for human sacrifices. But one case was more famous than any other.

The Vestal Virgins of Rome took a sacred oath to become priestesses dedicated to the Goddess Vesta. They had two main duties - to maintain the sacred fire, and to maintain a vow of chastity and celibacy. If they broke the latter, the punishment was dire - they would first be stripped of all their honors and ritually scourged.

Their fellow Virgins would dress them like a corpse, hold a mock funeral for them, and carry them to a small underground vault. There, they would be left in what looked like a small room - oddly, containing a couch, lamp, and even some food - and the area where the vault was built would be filled up with dirt and buried. This horrible ritual was conducted around ten times over the thousand years that the Vestal Virgins existed.

This continued as a form of punishment for thousands of years, but how severe it was depended on the circumstances. The murderous Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory was immured within her own castle - but she was supplied with food and lived for four years in her palace tomb. Now, let’s get into the Middle Ages - which were called the Dark Ages for a reason.

#10. The Breaking Wheel Europe loved its public executions - with everyone from murderers to heretics to common thieves facing their turn at some point. But for those deemed truly loathsome, a worse fate than the gallows awaited them.

No one knows when the breaking wheel was created, but the first references to the torture device can be found in literature from the sixth century. The condemned would be taken to a public stage and tied to the floor, at which point the giant spoked wheel would be rolled in. The goal of this first stage of the execution was to exact extreme pain, starting with breaking the legs of the convict by dropping the wheel on their shins.

Sometimes, this would be followed up on by killing the inmate by dropping the wheel on their neck, but this wasn’t common. Because the public demanded more blood than that. In most cases, the poor convict was lifted up once their limbs had been broken, and bound to the wheel in agonizing pain.

Their broken limbs often let the authorities snake their arms and legs through the holes. The breaking wheel was then raised on a pole, and the inmate was either left to die, beheaded, or lit on fire. The body was often left up for display on the wheel as scavengers had their way - making this resemble crucifixion in many ways.

However, there was a way out. If the convict fell off the wheel while still alive or survived the execution, they were deemed to be spared by God. Their injuries were treated, they were typically pardoned of their crimes, and were in the rare position of being one of the only people to survive one of the worst punishments in human history.

The worst punishments often lasted a long time - but few were as disturbing as this one. #9. Impalement How disturbing does a punishment have to be for the man who inspired Drcula to go “Yes, I like that, I’m going to make it my signature”?

Despite the association with the infamous Vlad Tepes, the Romanian leader didn’t create the punishment of impalement - it had been used since ancient Mesopotamia as a way to punish particularly hated criminals. It’s a simple method, but almost unspeakably brutal - a large, sharpened stake is taken and inserted up the back end of the unfortunate convict - and pushed forward until it emerges through the mouth, almost always causing fatal damage. They’re were supposed to serve as a message, as the stake was then raised and planted in the ground with the victim still attached to it.

In the most brutal cases, fields of these victims were planted as a grim warning to anyone thinking of invading the territory. At least it would be a swift death…right? Maybe, maybe not.

While poorly trained users would no doubt pierce the internal organs and lead to the person bleeding out in agonizing pain over hours, some more modern users figured out how to thread the stake effectively and follow the spine. This caused minimal damage and allowed the person to linger for days - with the record reportedly being eight days. Wait, did you say more modern users?

Yes, this horrible tactic did not die with Vlad the Impaler. It was used extensively by the Ottoman empire, most infamously during the Armenian Genocide that began in 1915. There are also reports that it was used by the Dutch rulers of the East Indies during the colonial era.

Vlad, no doubt, would be proud. This next technique might be the most infamous execution method of the Middle Ages. #8.

The Rack Most of the punishments on this list are execution methods that get a little too ambitious with prolonging the death. But punishment isn’t the only goal of torture - sometimes the torturers need some information, and the old guard was willing to get a lot more brutal than slapping people with a phone book. Enter the rack, a simple device that looks a little like an old-fashioned washboard.

But this device wasn’t used to clean clothes - it was used to create pain. The wooden frame features a roller at both ends, the victim’s hands are tied to the top end while their legs are attached to the bottom end. As the interrogation advances, the torturer slowly rolls the rack, extending the victim’s arms and legs until they can give no more.

And it only gets worse from there. Unlike the other methods, the rack doesn’t deliver immediate fatal injury. Rather, it deals out slow-level pain that gets worse and worse as the ligaments, cartilage, and bones of the arms and legs are stretched beyond what they can handle.

This can quickly break a person down as their shoulders and hips separate and their limbs are ruined. Even if one was able to escape the rack, it’s unlikely they could walk after it did its work. This also kept the person immobile for future torture, such as using hot coals to burn them.

The rack was so feared that sadistic interrogators would often use the rack on one person and force another to watch to try to break both of them down. The use of this device mostly died out in the 1600s, but was reportedly revived in 18th century Russia. But it wasn’t the most common method of torture in the Middle Ages.

#7. Auto-da-fe The Spanish Inquisition was one of the most infamous affairs of religious persecution in the world, as the particularly brutal authorities built on the Roman Catholic Church’s enforcement of laws. Opposing religion were largely banned, converts were surveilled and interrogated to ensure they weren’t keeping their old faiths, and anyone suspected of heresy was subjected to extreme torture under the authority of the infamous Torquemada.

And for those who confessed, an even worse fate awaited them. They would be subjected to a ritual of public penance where they would be paraded before the public and abused, wearing garments bearing their accused crimes. Then, the authorities would proclaim their guilt or innocence.

For some, it would be innocence and they would collapse in gratitude and relief. For most, it would be guilty - and horrors awaited. The punishment would typically begin with public whipping and torture, but it would only end one way.

The convicted would be tied to a stake, kindling would be piled under them, and they would be lit afire and burned to death while still alive. It was a horrifying way to die, but the only grace of mercy was that many passed out from the intense smoke before they burned to death. This execution technique is typically associated with witch-burnings, but most of those killed by burning over the centuries - from the 15th to the 19th - were either religious minorities or critics of the dogma and tactics of the Inquisition.

And it stayed in Europe - despite persistent rumors, no witched, accused or otherwise, were ever burned in Salem. Not all these punishments are famous - but this next one is no less disgusting. #6.

Schwedentrunk Ah, the Swedish drink. Sounds delicious, maybe like a Lingonberry soda? But for those who were being invaded by Swedish troops during the Thirty Years’ War in the 1600s, it was no laughing matter.

This wasn’t so much a traditional punishment as a method of torture and robbery used by ruthless soldiers - many of whom were out of supplies and intended to take them from the locals by any means necessary. It’s a simple technique - force your captives to drink as much as they possibly can, until they give you what they want. If you’ve ever tried to drink a whole gallon of water as part of a dare, you know this can get very unpleasant, very quickly - because your stomach can only hold so much.

But this wasn’t just drinking water. The Swedish troops would tie the person up and use a funnel to pour the liquid into the person’s mouth. And the actual substance would be an unpleasant surprise.

Sometimes it would be water. Sometimes it would be boiling water, causing terrible internal burns. Sometimes it would just be disgusting, like urine or sewage.

In addition to the possible poisoning or infection, this could cause the person’s stomach to stretch or burst from the massive amount of liquid. For the soldiers who wanted to add a little additional pain, they would then beat the victim’s swollen stomach or even stab them with spears. It’s no wonder that most of the victims in the path of this torture learned to just give the soldiers what they wanted - and pray that would satisfy them.

Now, let’s head across the pond for something that isn’t as funny as it sounds. #5. Tarring and Feathering It almost sounds like a cartoon gag - the unfortunate convict gets a bucket of tar dumped on them.

Now they’re all sticky! And here come the feathers! They look like a giant chicken!

But this isn’t slapstick comedy - it’s a feared fate for those who angered the mob in 18th century America. The tradition may have started much earlier - it was first referenced in an order by Richard I in 1189, but it didn’t catch on until tensions started rising in the British colonies in North America. Angry rebels in the years before the Revolution would protest tax laws by kidnapping British officials or suspected informers, coating them in pitch tar, and covering them with feathers to publicly humiliate them.

It was considered a grave insult - and good sport for the rebels. But the truth was actually much worse. How do you get tar nice and sticky?

You heat it up. While this wasn’t often the case, often the tar poured on the victims was boiling hot - and when it dried and came off, it would take pieces of burned skin off with it. While there is no report of anyone dying from being tarred and feathered, many of the victims were left in agonizing pain and had permanent burn scars.

The punishment became rarer after the Revolution, but it was hard to keep good torture down. The Mormon founder Joseph Smith was tarred and feathered by anti-Mormon radicals in 1832, and a German-American farmer named John Meints was subject to the punishment in 1912. His crime?

Not supporting War Bonds sales during World War One, and likely just being a German-American during wartime. This next one might be a bit of a catch-22. #4.

Trial By Ordeal You’ve been accused of a horrible crime, and the penalty is death. The good news is, you can get out of it. You just have to do…what?

Trial by Ordeal goes back to antiquity, when the most common form was trial by combat. This one was actually rather fair - you just go into an arena, fight a guy, and if you come out alive, you’re free. Want to prove you’re innocent of murder?

Just commit this other murder! This would fall out of favor eventually, but elements of it persisted in the duels that became common in the West. But in other cases, the odds were stacked against you.

These trials would often resemble torture, such as the accused being sentenced to trial by fire. In this one, the accused would have to walk barefoot over a field of hot coals, or hold a red-hot iron. Sometimes the person simply had to accomplish the painful task, but more often they would be checked for signs of injury - and only deemed to be innocent if they somehow managed to escape getting burned.

The odds aren’t looking great there. But one twist on the trial by ordeal was particularly sadistic. When witches were accused and placed on trial, they often proclaimed their innocence.

But how do you prove something that probably doesn’t exist? Those who trialled the apparent witches had an idea. The accused would be tied up and submerged in water to drown.

The idea was that the witch would be able to use supernatural powers to escape, so if she managed to escape, she was clearly a witch and would be put to death. So how someone prove their innocence? Simple - die!

If the accused witch drowned, they were clearly innocent and would go to heaven, according to the dogma. Even when the accused wins, they lose. This next punishment has some accessories.

#3. Rat Torture How do you turn rats into man-eaters? The first reports come from Roman Catholic writers alleging torture in the Tower of London during the Elizabethan era.

They claimed that as the tide rose and the River Thames rolled in, rats would climb into the prisoner’s cell and viciously attack them. Some doubt this happened, since rats typically don’t attack humans unprovoked. But the reports might have encouraged some people - because in the 16th century during the Dutch Revolt, someone did manage to weaponize the fuzzy plague vectors.

A pottery bowl filled with rats would be placed upside-down on a prisoner’s body, and hot coals would be placed on top of it. As the bowl heated up, the panicked rats would desperately gnaw at the prisoner’s flesh to try to find a refuge from the heat. Someone call PETA.

It’s grotesque - and it worked. Rat torture isn’t a particularly common form of torture, simply because it depends on living animals doing what you need them to. But the fear that rats create made it an appealing option for particularly cruel dictators, and it made an appearance in military dictatorships in South America during the 20th century.

Argentina in particular was infamous for using a retroscope to insert live rats into people and letting the creature dig its way out. It’s mostly a horrifying fact of the past - although in 2010, a man threatened his kidnap victim with rats to get him to grant his wife a divorce. This next torture is especially horrible, because the victim does it to themselves.

#2. Yubitsume Japan’s criminal scene is powerful and secretive, and agents that fall short of a task assigned by their boss often face severe punishment. But unlike the American gangsters who might find themselves wearing cement shoes, members of the Yakuza often face another penance - less deadly, but bloodier.

In order to atone for their offenses, they must sacrifice a piece of themselves - particularly, a piece of their little finger. This is not only extremely painful, but is considered to weaken them because the little finger is key to maintaining the grip on the hilt of the sword. But that hasn’t stopped it from being used for hundreds of years.

The penitent Yakuza member begins by laying their hand on top of a clean cloth. They then use a particularly sharp knife called a Tanto and slice off their little finger just above the top knuckle. They then wrap up the fingertip in a package and present it as an offering to the head of the crime syndicate.

Why would they want it? Tradition, because not only was this ritual used as a method of penance, but in the past it was used as a form of payment by gamblers who fell behind on their debts. The good news is, if the agent screws up again, they can do the ritual again.

The bad news is, they’re going to run out of fingers eventually. Finally, sometimes there’s nothing more terrifying than…nothing. #1.

White Torture Solitary confinement is torture in itself, stripping someone of all their comforts and isolating them from any human contact. But usually, they at least have a sense of space they can use to orient themselves. White torture strips them of even that - by placing them in a cell of nothingness.

The prisoner is deprived of color, giving them a cell where the walls, floor, and ceiling are entirely white. Not only that, their clothing is also white, and any food given to them - usually plain rice or porridge - is white as well. Taking this to the extreme, the cell is equipped with bright neon tubes that prevent any shadows from falling in the cell, and the soundproof cell leaves them with nothing but their own mind.

And that mind slowly starts going insane. An extreme form of sensory deprivation, this was reportedly used extensively in Iran against political dissidents - who could be held for months or even years in one of these cells. It also showed up in Venezuela, and international human rights groups even accused the United States of using it on accused terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, using goggles and earmuffs to block out the senses.

But in all these cases, the facilities are tightly guarded - meaning all anyone has to go on is the reports of the victims. And those are harrowing, with many claiming the extreme sleep deprivation left them unable to sleep even after they were freed, and haunted them for years afterwards. What about the children?

Watch “Worst Punishments of Children Through History”. If you want to know more about these horrible punishments, check out our “Worst Punishments in History” playlist to see these punishments and more broken down in bloody detail.