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Impalement is the penetration of an organism by an elongated foreign object such as a stake, pole, or spear, and this usually implies complete perforation of the central mass of the impaled body. While the term may be used in reference to an accident, this article has a primary focus on impalement as a form of execution, how it was performed, and highlighting some places where it was used, as capital punishment meted out by the judiciary, but also some examples from generalized massacres within the context of war, rebellion or persecution. In addition, examples of sacrificial customs by means of impalement of either humans or animals have been included. Impalement has also been used as a way of inflicting post mortem indignities (that is, shaming the dead), or been used as a means to prevent the dead from rising from the graves. Impalement has also figured in myths, legends, literature and films, and a short review of such instances is included. Finally, a few examples are given of impalement in context of animals, as in animals using impalement on prey, and hunting and preservation techniques in which impalement is a central element.

Main Uses

The reviewed literature suggests that impalement across a number of cultures was regarded as a very severe punishment, as it was used particularly in response to "crimes against the state". Impalement is predominantly mentioned as punishment within the context of war, treason against "the fatherland", against some "cause" or as punishment for rebellion. As another martial example, soldiers found guilty of cowardice, or grave dereliction of duty were punished with impalement among Zulus. Disregard for the state's responsibility for safe roads and trade routes by committing highway robbery, violating state monopolies, or subverting standards for trade are also recorded among offenses where impalement was occasionally used as punishment. For example, visiting Egypt for the first time 1657-58 Jean de Thévenot observed a man impaled for using false weights.

At various times and places, individual murderers have been punished with impalement, either by prescribed law, or in cases regarded as particularly heinous. A case in point is the old Bengali law code Arthashastra (composed between the 4th century BC and 200 AD), where the following crimes were punishable by impalement, or suka: murder with violence, infliction of undeserved punishment, spreading of false reports, highway robbery, and theft of or wilful injury to the king's horse, elephant or chariot. In the celebrated Laws of Manu, paragraph 276 states: "Of robbers, who break a wall or partition, and commit theft in the night, let the prince order the hands to be lopped off, and themselves to be fixed on a sharp stake."

Several cases show that impalement was a technique used in extrajudicial, summary executions and in massacres, or in cases of institutional religious persecution, or more generalized massacres with a religious slant. As a punishment for severe cases of religious crimes impalement was on occasion used in different parts of the world, and there are a few cases of human sacrifice by impalement. Some instances of impalement prescribed by law for adultery and other sexual crimes are also noted.

Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese colonialists are reported to have used impalement to subjugate indigenous tribes, or as a punishment meted out to slaves.

Methods

Impalement typically involves the body of a person being pierced through by a long stake, but sharp hooks, either fully penetrating the body, or becoming embedded in it, have also been used.

The stake is variably described as a sharpened wooden pole, or being tipped with iron or being called a lance, or made entirely of iron. One account alleges the tip was rounded, rather than sharp, in order to move aside internal organs, rather than piercing and damaging them in the insertion process. Its length is reported to be from 6–15 feet,in one description as "four paces" in length. Reported thickness ranges from a man's thigh, a man's leg, a man's arm, or thick as the wrist.

The impalement could be in the frontal-to-dorsal direction, that is, from front (through abdomen, chest or directly through the heart) to back or vice versa

Alternatively, impalement could be in the longitudinal or vertical direction, along the body length. A 17th century eyewitness account that incorporates and highlights a number of the features detailed below of the longitudinal impalement method of execution is the one given by Jean de Thevenot. The longitudinal penetration could be through the rectum, through the vagina, or through a wound opened specifically for the occasion, such as making a transverse incision to the os sacrum. In the cases where the cutting instrument is specifically mentioned, it is usually said to be a knife or razor, but a case is also recorded the wound was made with a hatchet/ax. One report says some sort of salve was used to stop the bleeding made during the cut.

The person to be impaled is generally said to have been undressed, then been placed on his belly, face down, hands tied behind his back, legs spread-eagled, either bound or held fast or sat upon by some of the executioner's assistants. In one case, though, it is alleged the victim was hoisted up by means of a pulley, in order to be inserted on an already erect (iron) pole.

Prior to stake insertion, some sources say the stake was greased. Typically, the actual insertion is said to have been by hammering the stake inwards by means of a mallet, with one of the executioner's team guiding the stake where he wanted it to go. However, a couple of accounts assert that the victim was gradually impaled by pulling his legs.

The impalement could either be partial, the stake becoming embedded in the body, or a full impalement where the exit wound is variously described as being, for example, "at the nape of the neck", "at the back of his neck", "close to the shoulder" or "at the breast".

After impalement, a number of accounts state the pole was hoisted vertically and fixed in the ground, but one account, by Samuel Gridley Howe, asserts that most were left writhing on the ground in impaled condition, and that being raised vertically was a "refined punishment" meted out to the few. When raised vertically, a few accounts states that the body was made to rest on a fixed plank or scaffold to avoid sliding, or that the stake and person was affixed to a wooden cross, or that the impaled legs were tight to the stake itself or that the individual's legs and arms were bound tight to adjacent poles Another source says that the victim was, at times, only partially impaled, letting the individual slide downwards on the stake on his own. In the Khanate of Khiva ca. 1820, the wooden stake had been, by design, left "badly sharpened", and was only partially forced in. The idea was that the impaled person, whose arms and legs were left free after hoisting the stake, should, by his own writhings in pain, thereby drive himself deeper onto the stake, until he died.

The survival time on the stake is quite variedly reported, from a few minutes to a few hours or 1 to 3 days. The Dutch overlords at Batavia, present day Jakarta, seem to have been particularly proficient in prolonging the lifetime of the impaled, one witnessing a man surviving 6 days on the stake, another hearing from local surgeons that some could survive 8 or more days. A critical determinant for survival length seems to be precisely how the stake was inserted: If it went into the "interior" parts, vital organs could easily be damaged, leading to a swift death. However, by letting the stake follow the spine, the impalement procedure would not damage the vital organs, and the person could survive for several days. The actual manner used are said in some accounts to have been at the discretion of the executioners, if they wanted the person to suffer for a long time, or being mercifully quick about it. In one account, the stake was by design partially impaled into the body's interior, in such a manner that full impalement would kill him off instantaneously. After three hours suffering, the executioners killed him by simply pulling his body downwards. In that case, his intestines were quite possibly ruptured, since he was swiftly taken down after death, because he "stunk horridly". In other cases, bystanders would be allowed to kill the victim out of mercy after a few hours on the stake. Leaving the impaled to expire on his own account, or letting others kill them out of mercy, may have been the more usual patterns. However, from 1606 Ansbach, there is preserved a receipt that not only details the expenses for the executioner, but also specifies the amount used for "refreshments" for the impaled individual.

Gaunching, and other methods

de Tournefort, travelling on research in the Levant 1700-02, observed both ordinary longitudinal impalement, but also a method called "gaunching", in which the condemned is hoisted up by means of a rope over a bed of sharp metal hooks. He is then released, and depending on how the hooks enter his body, he may survive in impaled condition for a few days. 40 years earlier than de Tournefort, de Thévenot described much the same process, adding it was seldom used, because it was regarded as too cruel

Less usual methods of impalement have been alleged, like direct cranial impalement by driving a long nail or spike into a victim's head. The Tunisian Arab merchant Muḣammad ibn ʻUmar (1789-?) made extensive travels in his time, and relates a story of how a very unfortunate Jew is to have met his end: "A Sultan of Morocco once put a Jew in a barrel, the inside of which bristled with nails, and ordered it to be rolled down a hill" From time to time, it is recorded that "ordinary" impalement was aggravated beyond that punishment, in that the impaled individual also was roasted over a fire, for example.

Christian martyrology is replete with horror stories of how saints supposedly were martyred for their faith. Whatever truth value belongs to these tales, one particularly bad fate is said to have befallen Saint Benjamin in AD 424 Persia. According to his hagiography, when the king was apprised that Benjamin refused to stop preaching, he "..caused reeds to be run in between the nails and the flesh, both of his hands and feet, and to be thrust into other most tender parts, and drawn out again, and this to be frequently repeated with violence. Lastly, a knotty stake was thrust into his bowels, to rend and tear them, in which torment he expired.."

Behaviour of the impaled

Many accounts speak of the impaled one writhing and screaming in agony, begging passersby to kill them. A particular feature about this manner of dying is said to be to feel a "ravaging thirst" and often begging for water. Others are reported to have been quite able to converse with people while impaled, sometimes smoking or drinking rakia on the stake as, for example, the Austrian bureaucrat Friedrich Wilhelm von Taube noted during his official inspection tour in the Kingdom of Slavonia in 1776. At times, soldiers were placed on duty to prevent people from assuaging the thirst of the impaled by giving them something to drink. According to the same source, the Dutch captain Johan Splinter Stavorinus, witnessing such an execution in Batavia 1769, the impaled victim would quickly die if it began to rain, because the water entering the wound would lead to swift mortification of the flesh, and development of gangrene within "the nobler parts". The man he saw was, composed and conversing with passers by in the morning, but expired within an hour after it began raining, just three hours later than Stavorinus saw him last. During the Khmelnytsky Rebellion, in 1649 Mazyr, a Cossack rebel leader was sentenced to be impaled, and wanted to spend his last hours in communion with God. He was given drink, and his request that he might die while he heard the church bells tolling was granted. In deep prayer and to the sound of church bells, he passed away after 6 hours on the stake.

Some anecdotes of the behaviour and fates of the impaled remain which, if true, would be unique in the history of impalement. The first was narrated as a proof of the efficacy of praying to Saint Barbara. In the woods of Bohemia around 1552, there was a robber band roaming, plundering and murdering innocent travelers. A manhunt was organized, and the robber chief was apprehended and sentenced to be impaled. While one of his associates, likewise impaled, swiftly expired, the chief was not so lucky. All day long, he writhed on his stake, begging to be killed, but all in vain. That night, in his despair, he prayed to St. Barbara that he was truly sorry for all his evil doings in life and that all he hoped for was to reconcile with God and to be graced with a good death. Seemingly in response, the man's stake broke, and with great effort and pain, he managed to de-impale himself. Crawling along, he came to a house, and his cries of help were heard. He was helped into a bed, and a priest was sent for. The former robber chief then gave his death bed confession, grieving over his misspent life, but properly grateful to God and St. Barbara. He then died in peace, his hands folded over his chest.

Another incident, which was, allegedly, partially witnessed by the editor of a "Ladies' Journal", is said to have occurred in Wallachia in the 1770s. He had been present in Arad when 27 robbers had been impaled. It was strictly forbidden to give the impaled persons any water, but one woman took mercy on one of the robbers, and fetched water for him in a kettle. As she was glancing furtively about to check if anyone took notice of her forbidden act of mercy, the robber smashed her head in with the kettle, killing her on the spot. The editor avers he was present when the robber was asked why he had done such a thing, and he merely replied he had done it on a whim, and just had felt like killing her then and there.

Rituals of impalement

Execution as pageantry

The execution of a human being has not always been only the mere killing of that person, but also a carefully staged ritual prior to, during and after the execution act. For example, both the chaplain at Aleppo, Henry Maundrell, who left a travel account from 1697, and the Scottish physician and naturalist Alexander Russell staying there 1740-54 note a local custom in which those criminals condemned to be impaled had to carry their own stakes to the execution site. Commenting further on the local execution rites one still notorious pasha had staged as he toured the country around Aleppo to distribute justice, Russell writes:

"The bodies however were not permitted to be taken down, and remained a horrid and offensive spectacle. It was the custom of that Bashaw, when he travelled, to carry malefactors, already condemned, along with him, and to empale one at every stage, leaving them to be devoured by the birds of prey, as the stake was too high for wild beasts to reach the body. His frequent exercise of this punishment, procured him the title of Hasookgee, or Empaler"

Refusing an executed criminal to be buried within the culturally perceived appropriate time of burial after death, and instead leaving the body exposed to rot or be devoured are ways to shame the dead that are quite often reported for victims of impalement, across a range of cultures.

Trampling on the dead

Sometimes, however, the shaming of the dead seems to have gone beyond mere shaming, into a calculated display of maximal indecency and contempt. One such example is from English history:

John Tiptoft, 1st Earl of Worcester reportedly had twenty men, found guilty of rebellion against King Edward IV, hanged, drawn and quartered. Each corpse was beheaded and hung by the legs. Then stakes sharpened at both ends were used, so that one of the ends was pushed into the anus, and the severed head was then placed on the remaining free end.

Mass executions and spectacles of horror

Occasionally, impalement has been an element in grand spectacles of horror, in which a large number are executed, often with other types of grievous punishments recorded as well. Some examples are:

Cassius Dio relates the following story of how Romans, and those collaborating with them were massacred during Boudicca's revolt:

"Those who were taken captive by the Britons were subjected to every known form of outrage. The worst and most bestial atrocity committed by their captors was the following. They hung up naked the noblest and most distinguished women and then cut off their breasts and sewed them to their mouths, in order to make the victims appear to be eating them; afterwards they impaled the women on sharp skewers run lengthwise through the entire body."

In ancient Tamil Nadu, in present-day India, impaling was referred to as Kazhuvetram. A notorious episode from Tamil Nadu, under the old Pandyan Dynasty, ruling from 500 BC- 1500 AD, the 7th century King Koon Pandiyan had 8000 Jains impaled alive. This act is still commemorated in "lurid mural representations" in several Hindu temples in Tamil Nadu. In that particular case, the Jains were massacred for blasphemy, for having taken the name of Shiva in vain.

The Mughal emperor Jahangir made his rebellious son Prince Khusrau Mirza ride an elephant down a street lined with stakes on which the rebellious prince's supporters had been impaled alive. In his purported memoirs, Jahangir writes:

"In the course of the same Thursday I entered the castle of Lahour, where I took up my abode in the royal pavilion built by my father on this principal tower, from which to view the combats of elephants. Seated in the pavilion, having directed a number of sharp stakes to be set up in the bed of the Rauvy, I caused the seven hundred traitors who had conspired with Khossrou against my authority to be impaled alive upon them. Than this there cannot exist a more excruciating punishment, since the wretches exposed frequently linger a long time in the most agonizing torture, before the hand of death relieves them; and the spectacle of such frightful agonies must, if any thing can, operate as a due example to deter others from similar acts of perfidy and treason towards their benefactors."

Human sacrifice

The Greek historian Herodotus avers that at the anniversary of a great Scythian king's death, a grand ritual of human and animal sacrifice was performed, where (post mortem) impalement was a critical factor in order to get the desired effect:

"When a year is gone by, further ceremonies take place. Fifty of the best of the late king’s attendants (...) are taken, and strangled, with fifty of the most beautiful horses. When they are dead, their bowels are taken out, and the cavity cleaned, filled full of chaff, and straitway sewn up again. This done, a number of posts are driven into the ground, in sets of two pairs each, and on every pair half the felly of a wheel is placed archwise ; then strong stakes are run lengthways through the bodies of the horses from tail to neck, and they are mounted up upon the fellies, so that the felly in front supports the shoulders of the horse, while that behind sustains the belly and quarters, the legs dangling in mid-air ; each horse is furnished with a bit and bridle, which latter is stretched out in front of the horse, and fastened to a peg. The fifty strangled youths are then mounted severally on the fifty horses. To effect this, a second stake is passed through their bodies along the course of the spine to the neck; the lower end of which projects from the body, and is fixed into a socket, made in the stake that runs lengthwise down the horse. The fifty riders are thus ranged in a circle round the tomb, and so left"

Captain John Adams, visiting Lagos in 1789, spits out his disgust at "horrid customs" writing about a local practice of sacrificing a young virgin to propitiate the rain goddess:

"The horrid custom of impaling alive a young female, to propitiate the favour of the goddess presiding over the rainy season, that she may fill the horn of plenty, is practised here annually. The immolation of this victim to superstitious usage takes place soon after the vernal equinox; and along with her are sacrificed sheep and goats which, together with yams, heads of maize, and plantains, are hung on stakes on each side of her. Females destined thus to be destroyed, are brought up for the express purpose in the king's or caboceer's seraglio; and it is said, that their minds have previously been so powerfully wrought upon by the fetiche men, that they proceed to the place of execution with as much cheerfulness as those infatuated Hindoo women who are burnt with their husbands. One was impaled while I was at Lagos, but of course I did not witness the ceremony. I passed by where the lifeless body still remained on the stake a few days afterwards."

Regional and other historical studies

Archaic age/Antiquity

The earliest known use of impalement as a form of execution occurred in civilizations of the Ancient Near East. For example, the Code of Hammurabi, promulgated about 1772 BC by the Babylonian king Hammurabi specifies impaling for a woman who killed her husband for the sake of another man. Evidence by carvings and statues is found as well, for example from Neo-Assyrian empire. A peculiarity about the Assyrian way of impaling was that the stake was "driven into the body immediately under the ribs", rather than along the full body length.

In the Bible, II Samuel 21:9, we read

“And they handed them over to the Gibeonites, and they impaled them ויקיעם on the mountain before YHVH, and all seven of them fell together. And they were killed in the first days of the harvest, at the beginning of the barley harvest.”

The theologian Adam Clarke was deeply suspicious of whether this passage ought to be regarded as part of the original Biblical text, and wrote:

"(The definition of יקע (YaQ`a) in Strong’s: “a prim. primitive root; prop. properly to sever oneself, i.e. (by impl. implication) to be dislocated; fig. to abandon; causat. causatively to impale (and thus allow to drop to pieces by rotting):- be alienated, depart, hang (up), be out of joint. The seven sons of Saul, mentioned here, , are represented as a sacrifice required by God, to make an atonement for the sin of Saul. Till I get farther light on the subject, I am led to conclude that the whole chapter is not now what it would be coming from the pen of an inspired writer; and that this part of the Jewish records has suffered much from rabbinical glosses, alterations, and additions.” )

In ancient Rome, the term "crucifixion" could also refer to impalement. This derives in part because the term for the one portion of a cross is synonymous with the term for a stake, so that when mentioned in historical sources without specific context, the exact method of execution, whether crucifixion or impalement, can be unclear.

Africa

Thomas Shaw, who was chaplain for the Levant Company stationed at Algiers during the 1720s, differentiates between punishments meted out to different population groups, impalement primarily being used as a form of capital punishment for Arabs and Moors:

"When a Jew or a Christian slave, or subject is guilty of murder, or any other capital crime, he is carried without the gates of the city, and burnt alive: but the Moors and Arabs are either impaled for the same crime, or else they are hung up by the neck, over the battlements of the city walls, or else they are thrown upon the chingan or hooks that are fixed all over the walls below, where sometimes they break from one hook to another, and hang in the most exquisite torments, thirty or forty hours. The Turks are not publickly punished, like other offenders. Out of respect to their characters, they are always sent to the house of the Aga, where, according to the quality of the misdemeanor, they are bastinadoed or strangled."

60 years later than Shaw, around 1789 in Algiers, Johann von Rehbinder notes that throwing people on hooks, the "chingan" mentioned by Shaw, is a wholly discontinued practice in Algiers, and that burning of Jews had not occurred during his residence there. According to one source, these hooks in the wall as an execution method were introduced with the construction of the new city gate in 1573. Before that time, gaunching as described by de Tournefort was in use. As for the actual frequency of throwing persons on hooks in Algiers, Capt. Henry Boyde, in one of his acerbic comments and footnotes to translated accounts from Catholic priests' narratives of the redemption of slaves notes that in his own 20 years there, he knew of only one case where a Christian slave who had murdered his master had met that fate, and "not above" two or three Moors besides.

Americas

A particular technique devised by the Dutch overlords in Suriname was to hang a slave from the ribs. John Gabriel Stedman stayed there from 1772–77 and described the method as told by a witness:

"Not long ago, (continued he) I saw a black "man suspended alive from a gallows by the ribs, between which, with a knife, was first made an incision, and then clinched an iron hook with a chain: in this manner he kept alive three days, hanging with his head "and feet downwards, and catching with his tongue the "drops of water (it being in the rainy season) that were "flowing down his bloated breast. Notwithstanding all this, he never complained, and even upbraided a negro "for crying while he was flogged below the gallows, by calling out to him: "You man ?—Da boy fasy? Are you a man? you behave like a boy". Shortly after which he was knocked on the head by the commiserating sentry, who stood over him, with the butt end of his musket"

Asia

Near East

Reportedly, members of the Alawite sect centered around Latakia in Syria had a particular aversion towards being hanged, and the family of the condemned was willing to pay "considerable sums" to ensure their relation was impaled, instead of being hanged. As far as Burckhardt could make out, this attitude was based upon the Alawites' idea that the soul ought to leave the body through the mouth, rather than leave it in any other fashion.

On the other hand, the mid-17th century merchant and traveller Laurent d'Arvieux became witness to an Arab robber who begged to be spared of impaling, asking to be flayed alive instead. The reason was that that had been the fate of his father and grandfather, so he wanted to die like them. His request was granted.

In 1838, Faisal bin Turki bin Abdullah Al Saud was ousted from the throne by Egyptian intrigues, and Khalid ibn Saud from the senior Saudi line was installed as pasha. He, however, became deeply hated for introducing punishments like impaling in the Nejd, and in 1840, he was replaced by Abdullah ibn Thuniyyan. If anything, the new ruler intensified the use of impaling and became even more hated than Khalid, preparing the takeover in 1843 by Faisal yet again.

Vietnam

During the Vietnam War of the late 1960s, one account alleges that a village headman in South Vietnam who cooperated in some way with the South Vietnamese Army or with U.S. soldiers might have been impaled by local Viet Cong as a form of punishment for alleged collaboration. The method of impalement was alleged to have been the insertion of a sharpened stake through the anus; the stake was then supposedly planted vertically in the ground in view of his village. The victim was allegedly tortured and humiliated by complete castration, with the amputated genitalia being forced into his mouth. Another account alleges that the pregnant wife of a village headman was vertically impaled. There is also an allegation from the Vietnam War of coronal cranial impalement. In this case, a bamboo stake was supposedly thrust into the victim's ear and driven though the head until it emerged from the opposite ear opening. The act was allegedly perpetrated on three children of a village chief near Da Nang.

Impalement and other methods of torture were intended to intimidate civilian peasants at a local level into cooperating with the Viet Cong or discourage them from cooperating with the South Vietnamese Army or its allies. The main culprits for the use of impalement appear to be members of the Viet Cong of South Vietnam. No allegations have been made against soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), nor is there any evidence that either the NVA or the government in Hanoi ever condoned its use.

Japan

Impalement was only occasionally used by samurai leaders during the Age of Warring States. Early in 1561, the allied forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu and Oda Nobunaga defeated the army of the Imagawa clan in western Mikawa province, encouraging the Saigo clan of east Mikawa, already chafing under Imagawa control, to defect to Ieyasu's command. Incensed at the rebellious Saigo clan, Imagawa Ujizane entered the castle-town of Imabashi, arrested Saigo Masayoshi and twelve others, and had them vertically impaled before the gate of Ryuden Temple, near Yoshida Castle. The deterrent had no effect, and by 1570, the Imagawa clan was stripped of its power.

Europe

England, Edward II and the shaming of suicides

It has long been believed that Edward II (1284-1327) was impaled by a heated poker thrust into his anus. This is, for example, contained in Christopher Marlowe's play Edward II (c. 1592). That story of Edward II's death can possibly be traced back to the late 1330s; however, the very earliest accounts of Edward's demise do not corroborate impalement, but speak instead of death by illness or suffocation. It is generally accepted by historians that he was murdered by an agent of his wife, Isabella, on 11 October 1327 in Berkeley Castle.

Not formally abolished until 1823, suicide victims and anyone killed during the commission of a crime could be punished post mortem with impalement. The law designated these deaths as felo de se ("felony against the self") and declared the dead person's movable property forfeit to the Crown (but not his lands). The body was buried at an unconsecrated location and early ecclesiastical law, like that of King Edgar in 967, forbade celebrating mass for the soul, nor commit his body to the ground with hymns or other rites of "honourable sepulture". The burial location was usually at a crossroads or highway. In some locations, a stake was driven through the corpse's heart. Following William Blackstone's reasoning, Moore is explicit upon that public shaming of the self-murderer is an important part of this tradition:

"By virtue of this authority the body of the self-murderer is cast with the burial of a dog into an hole dug in some public highway, which fulfils the law in this point. But in some places an additional (though not an enjoined) ignominy is practised, which consists in driving a stake through the body, and also inscribing the name and crime on a board above—" as a dreadful memorial to every passenger, how "he splits on the rock of self-murder.""

Holy Roman Empire and Switzerland, custom of live burial+impalement

In the Holy Roman Empire, there existed a curious execution method of combined premature burial and impalement. While article 131 in the 1532 Constitutio Criminalis Carolina recommended that women guilty of infanticide should be drowned, the law code allowed for, in particularly severe cases, that the old punishment could be implemented: that is, the woman would be buried alive, and then a stake would be driven through her heart. Cases from the 15th/ early 16th century show that not only women found guilty of infanticide could be punished in this manner, but also women guilty of theft.

In some Landrechte and city statutes, like that for Husum in 1608, live burial and impalement is prescribed for parents who murder their children, or vice versa. Dieter Furcht speculates that the impalement was not so much to be regarded as an execution method, but as a way to prevent the condemned to become an avenging, undead Wiedergänger.

While it seems that execution by impalement following live burial was primarily a punishment for female criminals, it is also attested for rapists of virgins. In one description, the rapist was placed in an open grave, and the rape victim was ordered to make the three first strokes on the stake herself; the executioners then finishing the impalement procedure.

Impalement was, on occasion, combined with other execution methods than live burial prevalent in the empire, in cases perceived to be of a particularly heinous nature. In Breslau 1615, for example, a man confessed, after torture, to 96 acts of murder (including cutting up some pregnant women) and severals acts of arson and theft. He was sentenced to be pinched several times with glowing pincers, then be broken on the wheel, and finally to be impaled. The chronicler remarks the man showed "unbelievable composure" during this horrific execution, and adds that he even was able to speak after being impaled.

In Switzerland, a possibly unique case of impalement occurred in Zurich in 1465, for a man who had sexually violated 6 girls between the ages four and nine. His clothes were taken off, and he was placed on his back. His arms and legs were stretched out, each secured to a pole. Then a stake was driven through his navel down into the ground. Thereafter, people left him to die. Throughout the 400 years 1400-1798, this is the only known execution by impalement in Zürich, out of 1445 recorded executions.

Wallachia, the case of Dracula

During the 15th century, Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, is credited as the first notable figure to prefer this method of execution during the late medieval period, and became so notorious for its liberal employment that among his several nicknames he was known as Vlad the Impaler. After being orphaned, betrayed, forced into exile and pursued by his enemies, he retook control of Wallachia in 1456. He dealt harshly with his enemies, especially those who had betrayed his family in the past, or had profited from the misfortunes of Wallachia. Though a variety of methods was employed, he has been most associated with his use of impalement. The liberal use of capital punishment was eventually extended to Saxon settlers, members of a rival clan, and criminals in his domain, whether they were members of the boyar nobility or peasants, and eventually to any among his subjects that displeased him. Following the multiple campaigns against the invading Ottoman Turks, Vlad would never show mercy to his prisoners of war. The road to the capital of Wallachia eventually became inundated in a "forest" of 20,000 impaled and decaying corpses, and it is reported that an invading army of Turks turned back after encountering thousands of impaled corpses along the Danube River. Woodblock prints from the era portray his victims impaled from either the frontal or the dorsal aspect, but not vertically.

Russia, tradition of rebellion and suppression thereof

In medieval Russia impalement in its traditional way was sometimes used as a punishment for some serious crimes or, more commonly, for treason. In particular, there are some evidences of this penalty being used during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. For example, the Elizabethan diplomat and traveller Jerome Horsey notes how swift the wheels of fortune turned for one nobleman, Boris Telupa, from being a great favourite, to ending his life on the stake Faced with serious revolts, the Czars' suppressions could be extremely bloody. For example, the following is told of how Stenka Razin's rebellion was crushed:

"In November, 1671, Astrakhan, the last bastion of the rebels, fell. The participants of the revolt were subject to severe repressions. Trained troops hunted down exhausted and fleeing rebels, who were impaled on stakes, nailed to boards, torn to shreds, or flogged to death. 11 thousand people were executed in the town of Arzamas alone."

One notable execution outside wartime was recorded in 1718, when first Russian emperor Peter the Great ordered Stepan Glebov, the lover of Peter's ex-wife Eudoxia Lopukhina, to be impaled publicly as a traitor. Just a few years later, in 1722, when Peter the Great demanded an oath of allegiance from his subjects, tumults broke out in the little Siberian town Tara by the Irtysh river, and 700 men are said to have been impaled alive in one day. In 1739, a peasant conceived the idea that he was, actually, Alexei Petrovitch, the son of Peter the Great, who had died in 1718 in dismal prison conditions on his father's suspicion he was trying to supplant him. The peasant in 1739 did not get much of a following, but he earned for himself the punishment of being impaled alive for his attempt at the crown.

According to some sources, punishments like impalement through the side and hanging people from the ribs were first discontinued under Empress Elizabeth (reign 1741-62). In the same vein, in 1754, Elizabeth abolished de facto, if not de jure, the death penalty in Russia, except for cases of treason. That attitudes towards impalement as punishment had changed considerably in imperial circles by the latter half of the 18th century is readily seen in the aftermath of the 1774-75 Pugachev's rebellion. While the rebels impaled the governor of Dmitrefsk in 1774, in addition to the astronomer Lowitz, Pugachev himself was merely beheaded.

Byzantine Empire

Impalement was used by the Byzantine Empire against various groups. Deserted soldiers would be thrown to wild animals or impaled. Enemy soldiers could also be impaled as happened to a group of captured Saracen raiders in 1035. They were impaled along the coastline from Adramytion to Strobilos. In 880 the crews and soldiers of some Byzantine ships who deserted during an Arab raid in southern Greece were paraded with ignominy through Constantinople and impaled. Emperor Basil II impaled captured rebel commanders in 989. At the beginning of 1185 emperor Andronikos I Komnenos stoned and impaled two relatives of Isaac Komnenos of Cyprus.

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire used impalement during the last Siege of Constantinople in 1453. Impalement seems to have been mostly used against perceived rebels during some of the more brutal repressions of nationalistic movements, or as reprisals following insurrections in Greece and other countries of Southeast Europe, or against Kurdish or Arab subjects. Highway robbers were still impaled into the 1830s, but one source says the practice was rare by then. The reviewed literature has failed to provide examples of either robbers or rebels impaled by Ottoman authorities after 1839.

It should not be presumed, however, that crime and impaling was very common in the Ottoman empire in previous centuries, either. For example, ] [], lived in the realm for 14 years from 1699-1713 and claimed that he hadn't heard of twenty thieves in Constantinople during that time. As for highway robbers, who sure enough had been impaled, Aubry heard of only 6 such cases during his residence there. Staying at Aleppo from 1740–54, Alexander Russell notes that in the 20 years gone by, there were no more than "half a dozen" public executions there. Jean de Thévenot, travelling in the Ottoman Empire and its dependencies like Egypt in the late 1650's emphasizes the regional variations in impalement frequency. For Constantinople and Turkey, he says it is "not much practiced" there, even "very rarely put in practice". The cases he does think worth highlighting relative to Constantinople is that Christians speaking or acting against the "Law of Mahomet", or consorting with a Turkish woman, or making unlawful entry in the mosques, such Christians may face impalement unless they convert to Islam. For Egypt, however, de Thévenot says impalement is a "very ordinary punishment" against the Arabs there, whereas Turks in Egypt are strangled in prison instead of being publicly executed like the natives. Thus, the actual frequency of impalement within the Ottoman Empire will have varied greatly, not only from time to time, but also from place to place, and between different population groups in the empire.

Tales and anecdotes concerning swift and harsh Ottoman justice for comparatively trivial offenses abound. For example, in 1632, under Murad IV (r.1623-40), a hapless interpreter in a fierce dispute between the French ambassador and Ottoman authorities (the French were accused of bringing a Muslim woman on board a ship) was impaled alive for faithfully translating the insolent words of the ambassador. Furthermore, Murad IV sought to ban the use of tobacco, and reportedly impaled alive a man and a woman for breaking the law, the one for selling tobacco, the other for using it. Another such anecdote, illustrative of European ideas of "topsy-turvy" Oriental governments with scant respect for rank and "proper" ways for the people to address the powers of the State is said to have occurred in 1695 under Mustafa II: The Grand Vizier prevented access to the sultan to a poor shoemaker who had a petition for his sovereign. Once the sultan learnt of it, he promptly ordered the Grand Vizier to be impaled.

During the Ottoman rule of Greece, impalement became an important tool of psychological warfare, intended to put terror into the peasant population. By the 18th century, Greek bandits turned guerrilla insurgents (known as klephts) became an increasing annoyance to the Ottoman government. Captured klephts were often impaled, as were peasants that harbored or aided them. Victims were publicly impaled and placed at highly visible points, and had the intended effect on many villages who not only refused to help the klephts, but would even turn them in to the authorities. The Ottomans engaged in active campaigns to capture these insurgents in 1805 and 1806, and were able to enlist Greek villagers, eager to avoid the stake, in the hunt for their outlaw countrymen.

Impalement was, on occasion, aggravated with being set over a fire, the impaling stake acting as a spit, so that the impaled victim might be roasted alive. Among other severities, Ali Pasha, an Albanian-born Ottoman noble who ruled Ioannina, had rebels, criminals, and even the descendants of those who had wronged him or his family in the past, impaled and roasted alive. For example, Thomas Smart Hughes, visiting Greece and Albania in 1812-13, says the following about his stay in Ioannina:

"Here criminals have been roasted alive over a slow fire, impaled, and skinned alive; others have had their extremities chopped off, and some have been left to perish with the skin of the face stripped over their necks. At first I doubted the truth of these assertions, but they were abundantly confirmed to me by persons of undoubted veracity. Some of the most respectable inhabitants of loannina assured me that they had sometimes conversed with these wretched victims on the very stake, being prevented from yielding to their torturing requests for water by fear of a similar fate themselves. Our own resident, as he was once going into the serai of Litaritza, saw a Greek priest, the leader of a gang of robbers, nailed alive to the outer wall of the palace, in sight of the whole city."

During the Greek War of Independence (1821–1832), Athanasios Diakos, a klepht and later a rebel military commander, was captured after the Battle of Alamana (1821), near Thermopylae, and after refusing to convert to Islam and join the Ottoman army, he was impaled, and died after three days. Diakos became a martyr for a Greek independence and was later honored as a national hero.

One of the worst atrocities with Greeks as perpetrators was the massacre following the Siege of Tripolitsa in October 1821, with several thousands massacred, many impaled and roasted. Some months earlier, in August, Greeks roasted a few Turks alive over a slow fire at Hydra. Narrating the Hydra incident alongside an incident where some 40 Ionians were impaled by the Turks, the journalist at the Edinburgh Magazine presciently remarked, unable to hide his disgust: "..and if the Turks have hitherto been more barbarous than the Greeks, it is only because they have been more powerful"

The "bamboo torture"

A recurring horror story on many websites and popular media outlets is that Japanese soldiers during World War II inflicted "bamboo torture" upon prisoners of war. The victim was supposedly tied securely in place above a young bamboo shoot. Over several days, the sharp, fast growing shoot would first puncture, then completely penetrate the victim's body, eventually emerging through the other side. The cast of the TV program MythBusters investigated bamboo torture in a 2008 episode and found that a bamboo shoot can penetrate through several inches of ballistic gelatin in three days. For research purposes, ballistic gelatin is considered comparable to human flesh, and the experiment thus supported the viability of this form of torture, if not its historicity. In her memoir "Hakka Soul", the Chinese poet and author Chin Woon Ping mentions the "bamboo torture" as one of those tortures the locals believed the Japanese performed on prisoners.

This tale of using live trees impaling persons as they grow is, however, not confined to the context of WW2 and the Japanese as torturers, but was recorded in the 19th century as an allegation Malays used against the Siamese after the Siamese invasion of Kedah in 1821. Amongst other alleged punishments, the sprout of the nipah palm was used in the manner of a "bamboo torture".

Impalement in myth and art

In classic European folklore, it was believed that one method to "kill" a vampire, or prevent a corpse from rising as a vampire, was to drive a wooden stake through the heart before interment. In one story, an Istrian peasant named Jure Grando died and was buried in 1656. It was believed that he returned as a vampire, and at least one villager tried to drive a stake through his heart, but failed in the attempt. Finally, in 1672, the corpse was decapitated, and the vampire terror was put to rest. The idea that the vampire "can only be slain with a stake driven through its heart has been a mainstay of European fiction". For example, the TV-series Buffy The Vampire Slayer incorporates that idea.

The 1980 Italian film, Cannibal Holocaust, directed by Ruggero Deodato, graphically depicts impalement. The story follows a rescue party searching for a missing documentary film crew in the Amazon Rainforest. The film's depiction of indigenous tribes, death of animals on set, and the graphic violence (notably the impalement scene) brought on a great deal of controversy, legal investigations, boycotts and protests by concerned social groups, bans in many countries (some of which are still in effect), and heavy censorship in countries where it has not been banned. The impalement scene was so realistic, that Deodato was charged with murder at one point. Deodato had to produce evidence that the "impaled" actress was alive in the aftermath of the scene, and had to further explain how the special effect was done: the actress sat on a bicycle seat mounted to a pole while she looked up and held a short stake of balsa wood in her mouth. The charges were dropped.

A graphic description of the vertical impalement of a Serbian rebel by Ottoman authorities can be found in Ivo Andrić's novel The Bridge on the Drina. Andrić was later awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for the whole of his literary contribution, though this novel was the magnum opus.

In stage magic, the illusion of impalement is a popular feat of magic that appears to be an act of impalement.

Other cultures than European ones also exhibit tales and myths related to impalement:

In the Hindu Draupadi cult, impalement, of animals, demons and humans is a recurring motif within legends and symbolic re-enactments during holidays/festivals.

In the Buddhist conception of the eight Hells, as John Bowring relates from Siam, those consigned for the Sixth Hell are impaled on spits and roasted. When well roasted, enormous dogs with iron teeth devour them. But, the damned are reborn, and must relive this punishment for 16000 years, over and over again.... Another tale popular in Siam was about Devadatta,a wily antagonist to Buddha seeking to undermine Gautama's position among his followers. For this crime, Devadatta was sent off into the very deepest Hell, the Avici, being impaled on three great iron spears in a sea of flames.

In Bengal, tales existed about a certain Bhava Chandra, who is to have been a king in the Pala Empire, and his equally foolish minister. They are a pair not unlike the Wise Men of Gotham, being bereft of common sense as a result of a curse laid upon them. In their last judgment, they had condemned two robbers to be impaled, but when the robbers began quarreling about who should get impaled on the longest pole, Bhava Chandra and his minister became deeply intrigued. The robbers told them that whoever died on the longest pole would be reincarnated as the ruler of the Earth, while the other would become his minister. Thinking it unseemly that two mere robbers should gain such a high position in their next life, Bhava Chandra chose to impale himself on the longest pole, while his minister happily chose to die on the shorter.

Animals

The shrike is a notable example among birds of predatory impalement. To kill its prey, a shrike will pick up an insect or a small vertebrate (mouse or lizard), and impale it on a thorn or other sharp projection. With its prey immobilized and dying, the shrike can feed with little trouble of the prey's escape. This same behavior of impaling insects serves as an adaptation to eating the toxic lubber grasshopper (Romalea guttata). The bird waits for 1–2 days for the toxins within the grasshopper to degrade, and then can eat it.

The reviewed literature does not record any culturally sanctioned use of humans using intentionally prolonged impalement, as punishment or utility, against live animals. Animals have been hunted with so-called "primitive weapons", such as spears, atlatl darts, or arrows, though impalement in these cases is incidental to the kill, and the animal is usually despatched as quickly as possible.

In earlier times, it is reported that pit traps, with a stake in the bottom, and a chained dog as bait was used "in all parts of India" and the Malay archipelago to catch man eaters:

"Tigers are frequently caught in traps—the most common is the pit trap which is used in all parts of India. A deep pit is dug and the bottom staked with sharp pointed staves. The mouth of the pit is concealed by branches and leaves and the bait (a dog generally) is tied to a bar over the centre. The tiger in prowling about discovers the bait, naturally springs at it and alights on the stakes, he is often pierced through by them—if not he is easily dispatched with long spears."

In arthropodology, and especially its subfield entomology, captured arthropods and insects are routinely killed and prepared for mounted display, whereby they are impaled by a pin to a portable surface, such as a board or display box made of wood, cork, cardboard, or synthetic foam. The pins used are typically 38 mm long and 0.46 mm in diameter, though smaller and larger pins are available. Impaled specimens of insects, spiders, butterflies, moths, scorpions, and similar organisms are collected, preserved, and displayed in this manner in private, academic, and museum collections around the world.

Although live impalement does not seem to have been used much by humans as a means of punishment or utility, impaling animals alive as a sacrificial custom is well attested for several cultures. According to Pliny the Elder, it was an annual rite in Rome to impale a dog alive on an elderberry branch. More modern forms of ritual sacrifice of animals by live impalement are also recorded. For example, in 1859, the British Government in Madras decided to circulate an order by which it forbade the sacrifice of oxen to appease the goddess Ammavaru

See also

• Impalement arts
• Iron maiden
• Penetrating trauma
• Punishment
• Shrike: a bird that impales its prey on thorns.

Quotations and explanatory notes

a. " They lay the Malefactor upon his Belly, with his Hands tied behind his Back, then they slit up his Fundament with a Razor, and throw into it a handful of Paste that they have in readiness, which immediately stops the Blood \ after that they thrust up into his Body a very long Stake as big as a Mans Arm, sharp at. the point and tapered, which they grease a little before; when they have driven it in with a Mallet, till it come out at his Breast, or at his Head or Shoulders, they lift him up, and plant this Stake very streight in the Ground, upon which they leave him so exposed for a day. One day I saw a Man upon the Pale, who was Sentenced to continue-so for three Hours alive/ and that he might not die too soon, the Stake was not thrust up far enough to come out at any part of his Body, and they also put a stay or rest upon the Pale, to hinder the weight of his body from making him sink down upon it, or the point' of it from piercing him through, which would have presently killed him: In this manner he was left for some Hours, (during which time he spoke) and turning from one side to another, prayed those that passed by to kill him, making a thousand wry Mouths and Faces, because of the pain be suffered when he stirred himself, but afeer Dinner the Basha sent one to dispatch him j which was easily done, by making the point of the Stake come out at his Breast, and then he was left till next Morning, when he was taken down, because he stunk horridly."

References

1. Arson case by Turk in 1834 on Egyptian war ship: Yates (1843), p.20 Impalement only for extreme cases, Scott (1837),p.115
2. Withdrawal from Vienna, 1529 In their withdrawal, the Ottoman armies and their allies massacre about 9000 individuals, many impaled, and about 10.000 taken into slavery, Hammer-Purgstall (1829), p.48 1669 Crete 15 Janissaries impaled for cowardice under siege of the Venetians, Knolles (1701), p.192 1670s civil war Hungary Schimmer (1847),p.72. 1685 Capture of Koroni The besieged Turks at Koroni impaled alive captured soldiers and hung them over the walls, in retaliation, the town was given over to general massacre/slave-taking, Sprangenberg (1828), p.175 1813 On some 300 Wahhabi prisoners of wars promised mercy by Egyptian/Ottoman opponents:Burckhardt (1831)p.322-323 Afghan-Persian conflict in the 1720s Krusinski (1840)p.111-112 1824, Burmese retreating soldiers on some 40 Assamese Buckingham (1826)p.243 1799, Naples, anarchic conditions Vidler(1799) p.256 1806 Calabrian Insurrection on French and sympathizers GvG (1816) p.110 1806 Lagonegro orders from French colonel Colletta (1858)p.20
3. General law on treason: Leonhart Rauwolff, travelling the Levant 1573-75 notes impalement as Turkish penalty for traitors, Ray (1693), p.36 Supplying the enemy 1654 Cretan farmers for furnishing the Venetion garrison with supplies, Han (1669) p.203 On defection to the Swedes: 1632, Lindau: Commander Fuchs for wishing to defect to the Swedes during the 30 year's war, Schwab (1827), p.256 On "defection to the Turks" i) 1600 Garrison at fortress Papa rebels, seek to hand over fortress to Turks; 12 officers are dismembered by the Hungarians for treason, 3 others impaled before the gates of Vienna, Schimmer (1845), p.166 ii) 1676 5 suspected arsonists in impaled alive in Upper Hungary, reportedly sent out by the Turks Feige(1694), p.312 iii) 1686 farmer for carrying correspondence between besieged Turkish general and relief army, Rocka (1785), p.281 iv)In 1697 Venetians on 20 soldiers caught defecting Rhodes(1697), p.420 v) Late 1716, 1717 and 1739 Austrian cases :de Waldinutzy (1772) p.477,column 1 1639 Kingdom of Kandy impalement of some 50 natives on treason allegation De Silva (1988) p.53 1735 Corsican case of "clandestine correspondence" Ackers (1735)p.50,column 1 As punishment for high treason in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 14th-18th centuries i) Generally, see: Tazbir (1993) ii) Specifically, see for example, a) in 1635 of Ivan Sulyma Gifford (1863) p.468 and b) 1768, Ivan Gonta Harmsen (1770) p.143 During the 17th century, Swedish impalement of pro-Danish guerrilla resistance known as Snapphanes Åberg, Alf (1951), Snapphanarna (in Swedish), Stockholm: LTs Förlag
4. The Hohenstaufen takeover of Sicily in 1194 von Imhof (1723), p.439 In 1705, alleged plot against the king and queen of Spain discovered, at least 7 impaled alive Luttrell (1857), p.565 Morocco in general for rebellion, see for 1720s Braithwaite (1729) p.366 Specific Morocco case 1705, some 300 rebels were impaled alive, in batches of 50 Rhodes(1706)p.46
5. Called (ukujoja), this punishment was also used against people found guilty of witchcraft Cmdt S.Bourquin. "The Zulu Military Organization and the Challenge of 1879". Military History Journal, Vol. 4, Num. 4. Archived from the original on 2008-01-25. Retrieved 2010-06-04. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
6. Piracy cases, i) 1773 Ottoman case of Hassan Bey Hinton (1773) p.276 ii) 1817 Tunis Niles (1817) p.105, column 1 1699 impalement of 200 robbers in Aleppo: von Imhof(1725) p.170 Diligent governor in 1720s Bengal against robbers Stewart (1813) p.405 1812, several cases in Asia Minor, see: Turner (1820) p.353 1748 and onwards, German regiments organize manhunts on "robbers" in Hungary/Croatia Woltersdorf (1812)p.267
7. Mid-17th century Kingdom of Kandy, illegal gem trade:Knox (1681) "p.31 Selling bullocks to Europeans Said to be a crime worthy of impalement in 18th century kingdom of Travancore, Forbes (1834), p.238
8. Thévenot (1687) p.259, arrived in Alexandria New Year's Day 1657, p.119, leaving Cairo 17th January 1658, p.162
9. Roman case of Menestheus, secretary of emperor Aurelian, who conspired to have the emperor killed Wilkes (1827)p.287 Prescribed law for murder, early 16th century Malabar on authority Ludovico di Varthema, see: di Varthema (1863): p.147 12-year old 1521 regicide in the Demak Sultanate and 70 of his relatives, Pinto (1653), p.264 Brothel owner and serial killer of customers Magiary Ali Aga, under Bayezid II's rule (1481-1512).White (1845) p.67-72 Egypt 1800, Assassin Suleiman al-Halabi of French General Jean Baptiste Kléber impaled by the French. Overall(1870) p.246
10. Boesche(2002)
11. Monahan (1925) p.126
12. Manu (1825), p.330
13. Enemy of King Henry I, Robert of Belleme had fondness of impaling his prisoners, rather than ransoming them. Huntingdon (1853) p.311 In th 1358 Jacquerie revolt in France, a number of nobles were impaled and roasted by peasants, Hume (1818), p.463 During the September massacres in 1792,Armand Marc, comte de Montmorin was impaled by the mob Beauchamp (1811) p.33 On impaling infants on stakes during revolts, see i) William St. Leger during suppression of Irish rebellion of 1641Gentles (2007) p.57,fn 80 and ii) 1791 slave rebellion at Saint Domingue of white infant on stake Hopkirk (1833) p.17
14. Provence 1553, some 1500 of the Reformed Church massacred, several impaled Cobbin (1815), p.65-66 Germany 1631 Sack of Magdeburg One soldier boasted of having personally impaled at least 20 suckling infants, and asked why he had done such a thing, he answered: "These babies are heretics' and rebel spawn and deserved no better treatment" Baur (1818), p.37 Piedmonte 1655 at the Piedmont Easter massacre of Waldensians, virgins are said to have been impaled "by their private parts" and paraded about as standards, Helvetius (1810) p.386 Japan: Nagasaki incident 1597, some twenty Christians impaled/crucified: Bidwell (1871) p.10 Madagascar 1836-61: Persecutions of Christians, some 2000 killed, some of whom impaled Gundert(1871) p.475 Kurdistan 1846 A massacre of some 3000 Nestorian Christians occurred, at least two bishops and priests were impaled. Presb. Mag. (1847), p.33 and Global Security Nestorian Massacres - 1843-1847
15. 479 BC Sacrilege: Persian governor is impaled on Athenian general's orders Herodotus in Hobhouse (1813)p.707 Blasphemy: Sufi mystic, Mansur al-Hallaj in Baghdad 922 Malcolm (1815) p.400-01 Sectarianism: In 1625, a Shia Muslim impaled alive in Mecca for refusing to "abjure his creed" Burckhardt (1829) p.12 Apostasy from Christianity: During the Granada War 1482-92, which led to the destruction of the last Islamic kingdom in Spain, the conquest of Malaga around 1485 was followed by burning alive Christians discovered to have converted to Islam, and impaling baptized Jews who had relapsed into Judaism. Lindo (1848) p.272 Apostasy from Islam from Islam, 1697 Aleppo: Maundrell (1732) p.141 Inducing another to apostasize from Islam to Christianity Alleged general law, Büsching (1769) p.12
16. Impalement as element of druidic human sacrifice rituals among Celts, see Diodorus SiculusDiodorus Siculus: Library of History, 1789 report from Lagos on annual sacrifice of a virgin Adams (1823) "p.97-99, a report about annual virgin sacrifices in Dahomey, Robertson (1819) p.293, 1790 Report about Guinea that humans were sacrificed to serve chiefs in afterlife Moore (1790) p.128 Ritual of anniversary of burial of Scythian kings Herodotus (1860) p.53, paragraph 72
17. Adultery i) 13th century ordinance for Bohemian mining town Iglau, Schwetschke (1789), col. 692 ii) In Malay Adat law, known as Hukum Sula, UJAHS (1955) p.76 iii) Occasional punishment among Aztecs, stoning more usual. ABA Journal (1969)p.738 Christian fornicating with Turkish woman Büsching (1769) p.12 Travelling to Constantinople around 1610, George Sandys reports that Jews there still remembered a recent case of two Jews being impaled for consorting with a Turkish woman on their Sabbath, Sandys (1615), Book 3, p.148
18. Around 1540, Spanish governor Pizarro sent Fransisco de Chaves to subdue the Conchucos, which he did with great severity, impaling many of them. Stevens (1711) p.190 Executions by the Spanish of Indian chiefs Caupolican in 1558 de Vivar (1987) and 1578 Juan de Lebú Arrana (2010), p.453
19. The Dutch in the Cape Colony punished a slave who had murdered his master Morris (2004) p.50 Dutch Batavia, 1769: Slave for murder of his master Stavorinus (1798) p. 288-291 1770s slave in Dutch Suriname, for rebellion, Stedman (1813) p.116 1859, Portuguese controlled Ouidah, slave impaled on suspicion of trying to poison his master Wesl. Miss. Soc. (1859) p.166
20. Shaw (1757)p.253-254
21. small piece of wood Hurd (1814),p.308 turks using wooden pale Dumont(1819) p.22, sharpens the end Maundrell (1732), p. 141, sharpe made stake Bond (1856) p. 172-73, use of nipah palm UJAHS (1955) p.76, "Aiolos (2004)"
22. von Taube (1777), footnote ** p.70-71,Hartmann (1799)p. 520, Steill (1849) p.403-4
23. Howell(1869) p.85
24. iron spit Dumont(1819) p.22, sharp iron Florian (1706) p.496, column 2, polished iron Stavorinus (1798) p.288
25. ^ "Aiolos (2004)"
26. 6 feet: Stavorinus (1798) p.288 8-9 feet:Hartmann (1799)p. 520 12-14 feet: Maundrell (1732), p. 141 Dampier (1729)p.140 15 feet: Jahn (1828)p. 640 four paces: di Varthema (1863) p. 147
27. Man's thigh: Dampier (1729)p.140, man's leg: Hartmann (1799)p. 520, Maundrell (1732), p. 141, d'Arvieux (1755), p.230-31 man's arm : Thévenot (1687) p.259, wrist: Howe (1828)p.108
28. Germ Mus. (1855)p.176, column 2
29. For extra-cardial chest impalement Döpler (1697) p.371
30. Roch (1687)pp.350-51
31. A possible case of 16th century dorsal-to-front impalement is given by di Varthema (1863) p. 147 See also wood block print in Wallachia subsection
32. Thévenot (1687) p.259 Other highly detailed accounts on methods are: i) Stavorinus (1798) p.288-291 ii) von Taube (1777) footnote ** p.70-71 iii) The regrettably highly partisan "Aiolos (2004)", notes on methods partly from Guer, see for example, Guer (1747),p.162 iv) Ivo Andric's novel "The Bridge on the Drina", containing several additional, but credible details on the impalement process. Excerpt: The Bridge on the Drina v) d'Arvieux (1755), p.230-31
33. UJAHS (1955) p.76
34. Possible case by 7th century Avars, Halsall (2002)p.31-32 1655 at the Piedmont Easter massacre of Waldensians, virgins are said to have been impaled "by their private parts" and paraded about as standards, Helvetius (1810) p.386
35. ^ Stavorinus (1798)p.288-291, d'Arvieux (1755), p.230-31
36. Razor: Thévenot (1687), p.259Knife: Hartmann (1799)p. 520, Hatchet/ax: von Taube (1777), footnote ** p.70-71
37. ^ Thévenot (1687) p.259
38. von Taube (1777), footnote ** p.70-71, Hartmann (1799)p. 520, Hurd (1814),p.308, Steill (1849) p.403
39. placed on the belly Thévenot (1687) p.259, von Taube (1777), footnote ** p.70-71, d'Arvieux (1755), p.230-31 face held downHowe (1828)p.108, thrown to the ground, Stavorinus (1798)p.288-291 , Hartmann (1799)p. 520
40. Thévenot (1687), p.259, "Aiolos (2004)"
41. held down Howe (1828)p.108, held down by four men Stavorinus (1798)p.288-291, bound fast von Taube (1777), footnote ** p.70-71, sat upon "Aiolos (2004)", hands and feet held fast by one man each, main executioner sitting on his knees upon him, d'Arvieux (1755), p.230-31
42. Dumont(1819) p.22
43. Thévenot (1687) p.259, Bond (1856) p. 172-73, 'd'Arvieux (1755), p.230-31, "Aiolos (2004)"
44. mallet Thévenot (1687) p.259, von Taube (1777), footnote ** p.70-71, Howe (1828)p.108, "Aiolos (2004)", 'd'Arvieux (1755), p.230-31, two men drove it forcibly inStavorinus (1798)p.288-291, "Aiolos (2004)"
45. von Taube (1777), footnote ** p.70-71, Stavorinus (1798)p.288-291, "Aiolos (2004)", 'd'Arvieux (1755), p.230-31
46. Maundrell (1732), p. 141, Dumont(1819) p.22
47. Thévenot (1687) p.259, "Aiolos (2004)"
48. For examples of varied type, Pinto (1653), p.264, Thévenot (1687) p.259, Hurd (1814),p.308, Dumont(1819) p.22, Steill (1849) p.403-4, Hill (1709) p.17, von Taube (1777), footnote ** p.70-71, Bond(1856) p. 172-73, Howe (1828)p.108, Stavorinus (1798)p.288-291, Maundrell (1732), p. 141, Dampier (1729)p.140
49. 'd'Arvieux (1755), p.230-31
50. Howe (1828)p.108
51. Bench Thévenot (1687) p.259, scaffold Stavorinus (1798)p.288-291
52. impaled person and stake affixed to (vertical) wooden cross Hurd (1814),p.308
53. 'd'Arvieux (1755), p.230-31
54. Robertson (1819) p.293
55. Muravyov (1824), p.70-71
56. 9 minutes, 1773 case, Hungary: Korubinsky (1786) p.139
57. 1800 assassin of General Kleber a few hours Shepherd (1814)p.255, six hours Hurd (1814),p.308
58. fifteen hours Bond (1856) p. 172-73 24+ hours von Taube (1777), footnote ** p.70-71, Hartmann (1799)p. 520, two to three days von Troilo (1676) p.45, Huebner (1693) p.480, Dampier (1729)p.140, "Aiolos (2004)", 'd'Arvieux (1755), p.230-31
59. de Pages (1791) p.284
60. For following the spine: von Taube (1777), footnote ** p.70-71, Stavorinus (1798)p.288-291
61. ^ von Taube (1777), footnote ** p.70-71
62. 'd'Arvieux (1755), p.230-31
63. By letting a bystander give the victim a stab in the heart: Maundrell (1732), p. 141, by giving liberty to shoot them after a few hours Russell (1794) p.332
64. Stieber (1832) p.4, note 56
65. Tournefort (1741) p.98-100
66. Thévenot (1687)p.68-69
67. i) Sisera by Yael in the Book of Judges 4:21, ii) Igor of Kiev on hunted monks Tooke (1800, London) p.159-60 iii) Both Ivan the Terrible and Vlad the Impaleron unlucky ambassadors Döpler (1697) p.272
68. al-Tūnusī (1854) p.263 Rolling a victim within a nail-bristled barrel is also reported from the Kingdom of Kandy on present day Sri Lanka, McGlashan (1849), p.164
69. During Hohenstaufen 1194 takeover of Sicily,von Imhof (1723) p.439 1670s civil war Hungary Schimmer (1847) p.72 1699 Aleppo: bandit chief roasted, other 200 merely impaled von Imhof (1725) p.170 1799, Naples Vidler (1799) p.256 1806 Calabrian Insurrection GvG (1816) p.110 1812 Asia Minor case, aggravated punishment of a robber found guilty of stealing an ox, by setting fire to the man's shirt while he was still alive. Turner (1820) p.353 1835 Kurdish retaliation on Turks relative to Turks' impalement of "robbers", Slade (1837) p.191 Even fateful encounters with wild cannibals are recorded: In 1514, in the Americas, Francis of Cordoba and 5 companions were, reportedly, caught, impaled on spits, roasted and eaten by the natives. In 1543, such was also the end of a previous bishop, Vincent de Valle Viridi.Perckmayr (1738), p.628
70. Into his urethra, by this account: Collin (1738), p.57, the stake finally thrust up his anus was studded with sharp nails according to the same source
71. Saint Benjamin
72. See, for example, Thévenot (1687) p.259, d'Arvieux (1755), p.230-31
73. Ouseley (1823) p.502
74. Taube, Friedrich Wilhelm von
75. Stavorinus
76. Stavorinus (1798) p.288-91
77. von Stramburg (1853), p.358
78. Vierholz (1737) p.493-95
79. Damengesellschaft (1785) p.95-97
80. Maundrell (1732), p. 141
81. Russell (1794)p.332
82. In Siam, for example, murderers, after beheading, were inflicted the post mortem indignity of being impaled, and exposed to the elements Bowring(1857) p.182
83. Warkworth (1839) p.9 Possible inspiration for Tiptoft's act from example Hospitallers on Turkish prisoners at Rhodes in 1458, Evans (2007) p.132
84. Cassius Dio: Roman History
85. On term, see: "Unexploited vestiges of Jainism"
86. Dundas (1992) p.127
87. Jahangir (1829) p.88
88. Herodotus (1860) p.53; a somewhat similar, but less grand sacrificial ceremony was witnessed by the 14th century muslim traveller Ibn Batuta, see Lee (1829) p.220
89. Adams (1823), p.97-99 Dating of Adams' visit: Marris (1961) p.4
90. caboceer
91. Article 153 in: The Code of Hammurabi
92. Layard (1850) p.374
93. Clarke 1831, Bible ed. p. II 267
94. Walde (1938), p. 297, Georges (1880) p. 621
95. Brandenburger (1975), p.391
96. Thomas Shaw
97. Shaw (1757) p.253-254 Shaw's contemporary John Braithwaite reports impalement and throwing onto hooks for Morocco as well, Braithwaite (1729) p.366
98. On time and duration of stay, Rehbinder (1798) Preface
99. Rehbinder (1800) p.263
100. Morgan (1729) p.392
101. Authorship Boyde cast in doubt by Roland Lebel, actual author might be Joseph Morgan, see: Chaouch. Henry Boyde was redeemed from captivity under George I, Boyde (1736), Appendix p.144
102. Examples on such acerbic notes: Boyde (1736) p.3, p.25, p.35, p.44 (compares French and Algerine slavery), p.45, p.51, p.52
103. Boyde (1736) p.75, footnote
104. Stedman (1813) p.116
105. Burckhardt (1822) p.156
106. Hartmann (1799) p.521
107. Palgrave (1868) p.47-53
108. ^ Baker (2001)
109. ^ De Silva (1978)
110. Reader's Digest, Hubbel (1968)
111. De Silva (1978, Sheehan (2009)
112. Kobayashi (1994), p.612
113. On chronology of allegations, Ian Mortimer.
114. Estimating "scholarly consensus" of murder, See Mortimer, I.:"A red-hot poker? It was just a red herring"
115. Overall (1870) p.246
116. See for example, quote from Cowell, in Moore(1790) p.314
117. Moore (1790) p.310
118. Moore (1790) p.308
119. Moore (1790) emphasizes this as a local, not general, custom:p.316
120. See also Kushner (1991) p.17-20
121. "What punishment can human laws inflict on one who has withdrawn himself from their reach? They can only act upon what he has left behind him-his reputation and fortune: on the former by an ignominous burial in the highway, with a stake driven through his body; on the latter, by a forfeiture of all his goods and chattels to the King: hoping that his care for either his own reputation, or for the welfare of his own family, would be some motive to restrain him from so desperate and wicked an act", Urban (1823) p.549-550
122. Moore (1790) p.321
123. For law text, Koch (1824) p.63
124. A number of such cases Döpler (1697) p.370-74
125. In Nuremberg, this was the fate of two women in 1481, and the fate of a chandler's daughter in 1508. But in 1513, when the executioner was about to bury alive another woman, she became so hysterical, that in her despair she scratched the skin off her arms and legs. Deipold, the executioner was so filled with pity that he recommended to the city council that this type of punishment should never again be implemented. The city council heeded his advice, and opted to, in the future, execute by drowning in such cases. Siebenkees (1792) p.599
126. Duchy of Schleswig (1795)p.653
127. Feucht (1967)
128. Nevertheless, a very late case shows that the impalement was actively used as the direct execution method as well. In 1686, a woman strangled her newborn. She was executed by impaling a stake directly through her heart. Roch (1687) "pp.350-51
129. Ledebur (1834)p.158
130. Roch (1687), p.249
131. Germ. Mus. (1855) p.176, column 2
132. Two additional to that single case are recorded as "buried alive", but it is not recorded if these two were impaled as well, according to the German tradition Knonau (1846) p.335
133. ^ Reid, (2000), p. 440
134. Florescu (1999)
135. ^ Axinte, Dracula: Between myth and reality
136. Bond (1856) p. 172-73
137. Quote: Prominent Russians: Stepan (Stenka) Razin , see also Avrich (1972) p.109-110
138. Rakitin (1999) In Russian
139. For background, Haywood (2010) p.105
140. For situation at the Irtysh, Büsching (1762) p.508
141. Mavor (1805) p.17
142. Manstein (1856) p.218
143. Kimber (1770) p.409
144. Raleigh, ed. (1996) p.89-90
145. Tooke (1800, Dublin)p.159
146. Burke (1783)p.154-55
147. Cavallo (1997), page 80
148. Wortley (2010) p.375
149. Haldon (1999) p.256
150. Treadgold (1997), p.518
151. Treadgold (1997), p.654
152. Bosnia and Serbia 1809, Bosnian revolt quelled, 20-50 "daily" brought in, most impaled Urban (1810) p.74 During the Serbian Revolution (1804–1835) against the Ottoman Empire, about 200 Serbs were impaled in Belgrade in 1814.Sowards, Steven W. (2009). "The Serbian Revolution and the Serbian State". Twenty-Five Lectures on Modern Balkan History (The Balkans in the Age of Nationalism). Michigan State University Libraries. Retrieved 9 February 2011.) A similar fate had befallen 42 rebels at Belgrade at the crushing of the First Serbian Uprising in 1813 Saalfeld (1821) p.682 Oct.6th notice 1839, Kurdish rebels in Mosul, Laurie (1853) p.207
153. Late Ottoman cases in 1830s Balkans, i) Some five case reported 1833, Peck and Newton (1833) p.440-41 columns 2 ii) 1834, Two such corpses, close to the village Paracini in the vicinity of Jagodina, see: Burgess (1835) p.275 iii) Rarity of such cases in the 1830s,Goodrich (1836)p.308 1835, Retaliative cycle Turkish authorities relative Kurdish "robbers", Slade (1837) p.191
154. Latest reviewed case: 1839, Kurdish rebels in Mosul, Laurie (1853) p.207
155. de La Mottraye p.188
156. Russell (1794) p.331
157. See de Thévenot(1687), p.68-69 and p.259
158. Browne (1751) p.248
159. Sherwood, Jones (1825) p.722
160. Percy (1825), p.147
161. Dumas (2008), volume 8, chapter 3
162. Hughes (1820) p.454, see also: Holland (1815) p.194
163. Paroulakis (1984)
164. Green (1827)p.70-72
165. Constable (1821) p.275
166. Turkish reprisals on Greek War of independence, i) 2.June 1821, 10 Greeks at Bucharest, Gross (1821) p.254 ii) During the massacre at Crete around 24 June 1821, most are said to have been impaled: Cotta (1821) p.988, column 1 iii) 36 Greek hostages, including 7 bishops at onset of Siege of Tripolitsa Colburn (1821) p.56 iv) In conjunction with the Chios Massacre in 1822, several Chiote merchants were detained and executed at Constantinople, 6 of whom were impaled alive: Valpy (1822)p.169 v) Omer Vrioni organizing in 1821 Greek hunts where civilians were, at least in one instance, impaled on his orders.Waddington (1825) p.52-54 vi) In early 1822 Cassandreia, some 300 civilians massacred, several reported to have been impaled, Grund (1822) PT 329 vii) During the last Siege of Missolonghi, in 1826, the Ottoman besiegers offered opportunity for capitulation for the besieged, while they also sent a message of consequences for refusal by impaling alive a priest, two women and several children in front of the line. The offer of capitulation was declined by the besieged Greeks. Alison(1856), p.206
167. As an example of popular promotion of this horror story, see for example:JAPANESE TORTURE TECHNIQUES
168. Ping (2008), p.23
169. Thomson (1864) p.101, See also Osborn (1861) p.190-94
170. Barber (2010)
171. Caron (2001)
172. For poularity claim and example:Thought vampires were just film fantasy? Skeletons impaled on iron stakes say otherwise
173. ^ Deodato, Ruggero (2000-11-12). "Cult-Con 2000" (Interview). Interviewed by Sage Stallone. {{cite interview}}: Unknown parameter |city= ignored (|location= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |cointerviewers= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |program= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |subjectlink= ignored (|subject-link= suggested) (help)
174. ^ D'Offizi, Sergio (interviewee) (2003). In the Jungle: The Making of Cannibal Holocaust (Documentary). Italy: Alan Young Pictures.
175. "Films C". Refused-Classification.com. Retrieved 2007-01-15.
176. Excerpt of impalement in book can be accessed here: The Bridge on the Drina
177. On status as Nobel Laureate, predominantly on basis of Bridge, see: A Reader's Guide to the Balkans
178. See, for example: Impaled
179. Hiltebeitel (1991) The Cult of Draupadi
180. Bowring (1857) p.306
181. Bowring (1857) p.313
182. Hunter (1875) p.313
183. Clancey (1991), p.180
184. "Evolutionary Ecology, Volume 6, Number 6".
185. Nuttall (1891), Blackmore p.83-84 (2003
186. Logan (1858) p.142
187. Uys (2006), p.112
188. Solis (2005) p.8
189. VanDyk (2005)
190. Hooke (1806) p.85
191. Balfour (1871), s.567

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• Execution methods
• Torture