1. The brazen bull
The brazen bull was an ancient great torture device that also doubled as a demented musical instrument. Naked victims were placed inside of a large hollow brass bowl statue. In most cases, the prisoner’s tongue is cut out with sharp metal shears, before being shoved into the empty bovine statue. The torturers would then light fires underneath the bowl and burn the person inside alive raising the heat gradually. The screams of the Bulls occupant could not be heard because the thick metal casting acted as a sound barrier. The only opening was through the bull's mouth that let out smoke from the person cooking inside.
A series of brass tubes were located towards the front of the bowl that would resonate the sound of the muffled screams of the tongueless victim. Depending on the intensity of the heat applied under the statue, the prisoner could survive anywhere from ten minutes to several hours.
2. The rack
The bone snapping ligament tearing torture device known as the RACK, was one of medieval Europe's favorite interrogation platforms. Essentially it was a table that has two rollers on either side. The victim’s ankles are fastened to one roller and the wrists are chained to the other. A handle and ratchet mechanism attached to one of the rollers is used to gradually increase the tension on the chains inducing excruciating pain. Over time, the sufferer’s joints are dislocated and eventually separated.
One horrifying aspect of this torture is hearing the loud popping noises made by snapping cartilage ligaments or bones. Muscles are stretched to the point that they lose the ability to contract, rendering them useless.
3. Rats in a bucket
Rats will do anything to escape an uncomfortable situation and torturers used this knowledge to their advantage in their sick experiments. A pottery bowl filled with rats are placed, open side down on the naked body of a prisoner. Red-hot charcoals are then piled on top of the bowl effectively heating up the pot and making it unbearable for the rats. The rats only way out is to gnaw into the very bowels of the victim in an attempt to escape the heat.
In one documented occasion, during the Dutch Revolt in the 16th century, a prisoner of war endured this torture. After the rats ate through his flesh and scratched at his intestines, the hot coals were then inserted into his stomach scolding his internal organs.
4. Head crusher
The head crusher is a device that clamps down on the victim’s head, smashing it between a metal plate in a rounded iron cap. As the executioner gradually twist the handle the victim’s skull is slowly crushed. Bone fragments from the skull can puncture the brain, causing spontaneous muscle spasms and brain hemorrhaging.
If the person inflicting the pain wants to torment the prisoner even further, he could strike the metal cap with an iron rod, sending echoing pain throughout the person's body. In most cases the victim is killed but not before the jaw had been crushed and their eyes had popped from their sockets.
5. Tucker telephone
The Tucker telephone was an electroshock apparatus used in Arkansas Tucker state prison in the 1960s and 1970s. Inmate doctors would use this torture device on unruly prisoners. The device worked by placing a ground wire around the big toe of a prisoner, while clamping the hot wire to the person's genitals. The wires were then hooked up to a telephone that had been modified to send electric shocks. As the phone was being cranked, piercing electrical currents were sent throughout the prisoner’s body.
Any inmate that passed out from the experience would be splashed with cold water and shocked again, intensifying the agony.
6. German chair
Similar to the rack, the German chair is a form of torture often used by the Syrian government against the rebels. When a detainee is captured, they are placed in a metal chair. Their legs and arms are secured to the seat, while the back of the chair is pulled back and down towards the ground. This causes severe stress on the spine neck and other limbs, often causing permanent damage.
One man who managed to escape the Syrian torture cell claim that they stripped him naked and hung him upside down in the chair for 8 to 12 hours a day for four days. He says the pain was so excruciating that he begged his captors to kill him. He still has uncontrollable twitching as a result of the torture.
7. Flaying
Flaying, also known as skinning, is an old torture that dates to 883 BC. It involves different methods to remove the skin from the victim’s entire body. The most common form of flaying is to use a knife, inserting the sharp blade just below the chin. The cuts start at the face and work all the way down to the toes. In some cases, the skin would be taken off in small sections and be performed slowly until completely done. What's left is a still living person with exposed muscles, ligaments and bones but the face skins still intact. A person could live a few hours up to a day after the skin removal process.
Another method involves being severely sunburned and then having the skin peeled off.
Lastly captives would be placed in large cauldrons with only their head sticking out, then hot scalding water or oil would be poured inside boiling their skin away.
8. Impalement
Impalement was and is one of the most gruesome ways of dying imaginable. The arms and legs are strapped to the ground by pegs rendering the person immobile. A large oiled wooden stake is gradually forced into the body, usually into the anus. They made sure that the stake was not too sharp, or the victim might die too rapidly from shock. There were many instances where victims were impaled through other bodily orifices or through the abdomen or chest. Infants were sometimes impaled on the stay forced through their mothers’ chests. Then the pole was then raised upright, the victim was left to slide down the pole with their own weight it could take the victim up to three days to slowly die.
This method of torture dates to 1772 BC but was made famous by 15th century Romanian Vlad ‘the Impaler’. Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula was inspired by Vlad's name and reputation. Recorded instances of impalement are as recent as 1919 during the Armenian Genocide.
9. Necklacing
Necklacing is a horrific torture that involves forcing a rubber tire, filled with gasoline around of victim’s chest and arms and then setting it on fire. The victim may take up to 20 minutes to die, suffering from severe burns in the process. In South Africa, Nigeria and India necklacing was a common sentence carried out by angry mobs to punish suspected thieves and rapists in the 1970s and 80.
Brazilian drug lords are also known to have necklaced their enemies. Most notoriously the journalist Tim Lopez, in 2002, after he was kidnapped by local drug dealers, his hands arms and legs were severed with a sword while still alive they then stuffed his body in gasoline filled tires and set it on fire.
10. The Judas cradle
The Judas cradle was a pyramid-shaped seat that a prisoner would be forced to sit on. The victim would be raised over top of a structure with the aid of ropes and a harness. As the person is lowered down the top of the pyramid, it would be lined up to enter the anus or the vagina and cause unimaginable pain and discomfort. The feet would be bound together so that if one leg moved the other one would move too enacting more pain. The subject is tortured by intense pressure and stretching of the orifice eventually succumbing to tears and muscle tissue.
Torturers would prolong the interrogations by raising the victim off the seat overnight and then continuing the torture the next morning. If the victim did not die from shock exhaustion or impalements they could have died from infection, as the Judas cradle was rarely clean between tortures.
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