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There is debate about whether the blood eagle was historically practiced, or whether it was a literary device invented centuries later by the Christian Norse authors who transcribed the sagas. No contemporary accounts of the rite exist, and the scant references in the sagas are several hundred years after the Christianization of Scandinavia.
Execution wheel (German: Richtrad) with underlays, 18th century; on display at the Märkisches Museum, Berlin The breaking wheel, also known as the execution wheel, the Wheel of Catherine or the (Saint) Catherine('s) Wheel, was a torture method used for public execution primarily in Europe from antiquity through the Middle Ages up to the 19th century by breaking the bones of a criminal or ...
Scaphism (from Greek σκάφη, meaning "boat"), [1] also known as the boats, is reported by Plutarch in his Life of Artaxerxes as an ancient Persian method of execution.He describes the victim being trapped between two small boats, one inverted on top of the other, with limbs and head sticking out, feeding them and smearing them with milk and honey, and allowing them to fester and be ...
Used as punishment for high treason in the Ancien régime; also used by several others countries at various points in history. Drowning: Execution by drowning is attested very early in history, by a large variety of cultures, and as the method of execution for many different offences. Drawing and quartering: English method of execution for high ...
The brazen bull, also known as the bronze bull, Sicilian bull, Bellowing bull or bull of Phalaris, was a torture and execution device designed in ancient Greece. [1] According to Diodorus Siculus, recounting the story in Bibliotheca historica, Perilaus (Περίλαος) (or Perillus (Πέριλλος)) of Athens invented and proposed it to Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas, Sicily, as a new ...
Trial by cauldron was an ancient Frankish custom used against both freedmen and slaves in cases of theft, false witness and contempt of court, where the accused was made to plunge their right hand into a boiling cauldron and pull out a ring. [38] As Frankish influence spread throughout Europe, ordeal by cauldron spread to neighboring societies ...
The punishment consisted of being sewn up in a leather sack, with an assortment of live animals including a dog, snake, monkey, and a chicken or rooster, and then being thrown into water. The punishment may have varied widely in its frequency and precise form during the Roman period. For example, the earliest fully documented case is from ca ...
Greek tragedy is widely believed to be an extension of the ancient rites carried out in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and theatre, and it heavily influenced the theatre of Ancient Rome and the Renaissance. Tragic plots were most often based upon myths from the oral traditions of archaic epics. In tragic theatre, however, these narratives ...