
As human beings, we’ve been gifted with an amazing capacity for creativity and artistic creation. The world has been blessed with amazing painters, sculptors, thespians, inventors, and all other kinds of artists over the long history of humanity.
While many of the things that come from the creative minds of human beings are beautiful and inspirational, that same creative capacity has created some incredibly horrifying torture devices. That’s right, it wasn’t enough that humans wanted to kill other humans. We invented ways to make our fellow humans suffer as much as possible before finally meeting their ends.
Many ancient torture devices that have been used throughout history will shake your faith in the human race and make you wonder how anyone could have ever been sick and twisted enough to invent them.
While the Middle Ages are certainly the time period most commonly associated with torture, the first evidence of the legal use of torture is found in the Code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian text that dates back to 1755 BC. It didn’t stop there. There is also a great deal of evidence that torture existed in the judiciary of the Ancient Greek republics during the time of Plato and Aristotle.
In other parts of the ancient and medieval world, societies were also coming up with their own terrifying and inventive ways to torture people, whether their intent was to extract a confession or simply to cause as much pain as possible.
The Brazen Bull

According to Ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, the brazen bull was invented by the sculptor, Perilaus, for the tyrant Phalaris of Akragas (which is now in modern-day Sicily). Akragas flourished under the rule of Phalaris, but he was known to rule over his kingdom with an iron fist or, more accurately, a bronze bull.
The brazen bull was a bronze statue of a bull that had a few tricks up its sleeve. First of all, a fire would be lit under its belly. When the hollow statue was sufficiently hot, its victim would be placed inside and cooked alive.
The brazen bull also featured a series of pipes and whistles that would convert the screams of the victim into a sound similar to the snorting of a bull, which Phalaris apparently found very amusing. According to legend, one of the first victims to be put into the brazen bull was the device’s inventor Perilaus.
The Judas Cradle

The Judas cradle was popularized during the Spanish Inquisition but is believed to trace its roots back to Ancient Rome. This gruesome device was basically a chair that had a seat shaped like a pyramid rather than a flat surface.
The victim would be tied to the chair in such a way that they had to squat over the pyramid for an indefinite amount of time to keep it from impaling their anus. Once their legs inevitably gave out, the pyramid and gravity would work together to rip through the person’s insides.

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Typically, this device would result in either a slow death or serious injury. If the victim gave up the desired information or gave a confession, they might be released. If the torturers wanted the person to die they might put a weight on top of them to speed up the impaling process. They might also tie the hands and feet of the victim together to make it more difficult to maintain the position or even add oil to the chair to make it impale the victim more quickly.
The Pear of Anguish

The first known mention of the pear of anguish was in a French book about the history of thieves written in 1699. However, it’s believed that this device was used all throughout the Middle Ages, specifically on women, homosexuals, and liars.
It consisted of a metal pear-shaped bulb that was made up of three or four leaves. These metal leaves would be attached to a key that, when turned in the correct direction, would expand the metal leaves in all directions.
The pear of anguish, which was also sometimes called a choke pear, would be inserted into the mouth, vagina, or rectum of the victim and then expanded to cause extreme pain. If expanded far enough, the device could mutilate the insides of the victim and even cause death. According to the stories, the device was invented by a thief who would go into people’s homes and use the device to subdue the owner while the rest of the thieves collected their loot.
The Rack

Perhaps one of the most well-known torture devices from history is the rack, which is believed to have been invented in Ancient Greece. One of the device’s first recorded uses was on a man named Herostratus who burned down the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in 356 BC. It was also notably used later in history on martyrs in England such as Protestant Anne Askew and Catholic Nicholas Owen.
First, the victim’s ankles and wrists would be tied to cranks on either end of the rack. Then, during the interrogation process, the cranks would be turned more and more, pulling the victim’s legs and arms in opposite directions.
One of the worst aspects of the rack was the horrific popping noises that the joints and ligaments of the victim would make as their body was being pulled apart. In fact, the process was so gruesome that the torturers would sometimes try to inspire a confession by making a prisoner watch another prisoner get tortured on the rack. If someone was stretched too far on the rack, many of their bones would be dislocated and their muscle fibers would become overstretched and might never work again.
The Heretic’s Fork

The heretic’s fork was an invention of the Spanish Inquisition that was used primarily on heretics and suspected witches. The device was meant to elicit confessions rather than actually kill its victims, but it was still a pretty horrible way to be tortured.
A rod with two-pronged forks on either end was tied to the victim’s neck. One side would be under the chin of the victim and the other would jab into the breastbone. This made it necessary to crane their neck backward and constantly look upward to avoid being pierced by either fork.
Over time, this position would begin to get very uncomfortable and, instead of being able to relax, they would find that they would have to keep their head cocked backward or have their chin impaled.
The victim of the heretic’s fork would be completely unable to sleep, which would lead to most victims becoming delirious in a matter of days. Eventually, the victim would usually admit to whatever crime that they were being accused of simply in hopes of being let out of the device. Unfortunately, in most cases, the result of the confession was that the victim would be burned at the stake in the middle of a public square.