13 Ancient Punishments So Cruel That They Were Eventually Banned

In April 1905, a camera recorded the final moments of a man condemned to one of the most feared punishments in Imperial China. The photographs traveled the world. They didn’t just show the death of a prisoner. They were showcasing a system designed to transform suffering into spectacle and fear into obedience.

A few days later, that punishment was officially eliminated from the Chinese Penal Code, but it was far from being the only one. For centuries, governments have created methods of punishment so cruel that today they seem like inventions from horror movies. Some were performed in front of thousands of people, others left permanent marks.
And there were those whose objective was not just to end a life, but to ensure that everyone present would never forget what they had witnessed. In this video, you will learn about 13 real punishments that spanned empires, courts, and battlefields, until laws and reforms finally put an end to them. And the last one was abolished when the modern world already had photographs, automobiles, and electricity.
This is a journey through the moment when justice stopped merely seeking guilt and began manufacturing fear.
Number 13, the little furry one. In the center of many European cities there was a seemingly simple wooden structure. She would bind the condemned man’s head and hands, leaving the rest of his body exposed.
The pillory was not created for killing. His main weapon was the crowd. The condemned man could remain imprisoned for hours while people screamed, spat, and threw anything they could find. In some cases, the aggression of the public caused a humiliating sentence to end in death. The punishment also destroyed the person’s reputation.
After being paraded before neighbors and shopkeepers, the condemned man might carry that memory for the rest of his life. There was no privacy. Shame was part of the sentence. Over time, legal experts began to recognize a problem. The court determined the exposure, but the crowd decided the severity of the punishment.
In England, the pillory was finally abolished by law in 1837. The structure disappeared from the squares, but the idea of turning a condemned person into a spectacle would survive for a long time.
Number 12, the brand mark. Before documents with photographs, fingerprints, and databases, authorities were looking for a simple way to identify repeat offenders.
The solution was to write the sentence directly on the body. A heated iron could brand the condemned person’s hand, face, or other visible part of their body. In certain periods in England, different letters indicated different crimes. The marking did not end when the prisoner was released. She remained visible at work, on the streets, and inside her home.
It was a sentence that followed the person even after their legal debt had been considered paid. Beyond the pain, there was another objective: to prevent the condemned man from rebuilding his life without everyone knowing his past. In English courts, the mark on the hand was also used to identify those who had already received certain legal benefits, preventing the same person from claiming the same protection again.
During the 19th century, this practice was gradually removed from British legislation. The justice system was beginning to abandon the idea that a conviction should be permanently etched onto the skin, but on ships, discipline could still be much worse.
Number 11, the naval whip. Imagine spending months aboard a ship surrounded by the ocean, with no possibility of leaving your post and under the almost absolute authority of the officers.
For centuries, navies used flogging as a form of discipline. The punishment was carried out in front of the crew, because the real target was not just the one receiving the blows, but every sailor watching. Offenses such as insubordination, desertion, drunkenness, or theft could result in corporal punishment.
The number of coups varied depending on the era, the country, and the commander. In extreme cases, the injuries caused infections resulting in permanent disability or death. In the United States, Congress banned flogging in the Navy in 1850. The change did not occur because the oceans became less dangerous. It happened because the state began to recognize that discipline and brutality didn’t have to mean the same thing.
And yet, that was not the most feared naval punishment. We’ll be back at sea in a few minutes.
Number 10, the press of the law. In medieval England, an accused person had to plead guilty or innocent in order for the trial to continue. But some defendants were responding. The motive could be religious, political, or even an attempt to protect the family.
In certain periods, dying without formally accepting the judgment could prevent the complete confiscation of assets. To force the accused to talk, a punishment known as peine forte et dure emerged. The prisoner was placed lying down and subjected to progressively increasing weight.
Then came the question: "Guilty or innocent?"
If there was no response, more weight could be added. The procedure could continue until the person finally accepted the judgment or was no longer able to respond.
One of the best-known cases occurred in 1692 during the Salem witch trials. Giles Corey, who was over 80 years old, declined to make a formal statement. According to reports, his last words asked for only one thing: "More weight."
In the 16th century, English legislation eliminated this procedure. From that moment on, the defendant’s silence no longer authorized the court to use his own body as an instrument of pressure.
Number nine, the cage after death. For some authorities, executing the condemned was not enough. The body needed to continue serving as a birdwatcher’s nest.
In the practice known as gibbeting, the corpse was placed inside an iron structure and suspended in a public place, a road, a hill, a port, or near the area where the crime had occurred. The cage could remain there for months or years. Travelers passed by her, children grew up seeing that silhouette, and everyone understood the message without a single word being necessary.
This punishment transformed the landscape into an extension of the courtroom. The family did not receive the body; there was no dignified funeral. The condemnation continued even after death.
In England, the practice of hanging bodies in chains was abolished in 1834. The decision ended an era in which the state used human remains as warning signs, but the Romans had created even more symbolic punishments.
Number eight, the feather in the bag. In ancient Rome, the murder of a father or mother was not treated as a common crime. For the Romans, parricide broke one of the fundamental structures of society: the authority of the family. The punishment became known as poena cullei, the sack punishment. Versions have changed over the centuries, and even Roman records don’t always describe the ritual in the same way.
In its most famous form, the condemned person was placed inside a sturdy sack. Later sources mention the presence of animals with symbolic meanings, such as a snake, a dog, a rooster, and a monkey. Then the bag was thrown into the water.
The intention was not just to execute, but to deny the condemned contact with heaven, earth, and even a common burial. For the Romans, every detail transformed the sentence into a symbolic expulsion from the human world.
The practice disappeared, reappeared in different codes, and was even revived in parts of Europe centuries later. In the Byzantine Empire, it ceased to appear as an official punishment at the end of the first millennium.
The feather in the bag reveals something disturbing. Ancient legal systems didn’t just want to punish the body; they wanted to create a narrative that everyone would repeat.
Number seven, condemned to the beasts. In Roman arenas, executions could be part of public entertainment. The sentence known as damnatio ad bestias meant condemnation to the beasts. Criminals, enslaved people, deserters, and enemies of the state could be placed before wild animals.
Depending on the circumstances, the condemned person received little or no opportunity to defend themselves. The arena combined justice, politics, and spectacle. The public wasn’t there merely to witness a verdict.
He was being reminded of the power of Rome. The message was clear. Outside the protection of the empire, the individual could be reduced to part of the spectacle.
However, not all popular stories are proven true. Although Christians were killed by animals in Roman persecutions, there is no certainty that all the accounts attributed to the Colosseum occurred exactly as they were told centuries later.
With the religious and political transformation of the empire, these spectacles went into decline. The practice disappeared from Roman and Byzantine law. The animals left the arena, but a wooden structure continued to represent Roman power for centuries.
Number six, the crucified fanção. Crucifixion was not invented by the Romans, but Rome transformed it into a system. It was reserved primarily for enslaved people, foreigners, rebels, and enemies of the state. Roman citizens rarely received this sentence.
The goal was to prolong the suffering and, above all, to produce public humiliation. The structures were placed near roads and city entrances so that as many people as possible could see them.
In 71 BC. After the defeat of the revolt led by Spartacus, thousands of prisoners were crucified along the Appian Way. The road to Rome became a demonstration of power. The punishment didn’t just say these people died, it said: "This will happen to anyone who defies the empire."
In the 4th century, during the reign of Constantine, crucifixion was removed from Roman judicial practice. The exact text of the decree has not survived, but ancient historians attribute the end of the plague to it. The structure that once symbolized Roman punishment would ironically come to represent one of the world’s major religions.
And at sea, another type of sentence used the ship itself as an instrument.
Number five, pass through the keel. The keel is the structure that runs along the bottom of a ship. In the punishment known as keelhauled, the sailor was tied to a rope, thrown into the sea, and pulled under the vessel.
The risk didn’t just come from shortness of breath. Ancient hulls could be covered in shells, uneven wood, and sharp surfaces. Contrary to what movies show, there is no evidence that pirates used this method as frequently as portrayed in popular culture. The strongest records appear to be linked primarily to European naval discipline, especially within the Dutch maritime tradition.
The punishment could involve execution, but in other cases the goal was simply to ensure the sailor’s survival and carry the memory. With the modernization of navies and the creation of less arbitrary disciplinary codes, it disappeared from official use. Centuries later, the expression continued to exist, but the rope no longer went under the ship.
Number four, the bonfire. For centuries, burning at the stake was used against people accused of heresy, witchcraft, and treason. Fire held a meaning that, beyond execution for religious and civil authorities, represented purification, destruction of the body, and public elimination of the ideas attributed to the condemned.
But the procedures varied. In some cases, the person was strangled before the flames reached them. In other cases, the wind, damp wood, or flaws in the execution prolonged the sentence.
In England, women convicted of certain forms of treason could still receive a death sentence by fire at the end of the 17th century. The difference between men and women was not a matter of mercy; it was the result of a society that treated even execution according to rules of gender and social standing.
In 1790, the British Parliament eliminated the burning of women convicted of treason, replacing it with hanging. It was not the end of the death penalty, but it was a recognition that certain forms of execution could no longer be justified by law.
The next punishment would turn even an ordinary wheel into a symbol of terror.
Number three, the breaking wheel. A wagon wheel was part of everyday European life, but in a court of law, it could mean something completely different. In execution by wheel, the condemned person was tied to a wooden structure. The procedure could involve calculated blows, immobilization, and public exposure.
In some regions, the court even determined the order and number of blows. The executioner’s knowledge also influenced the duration. A swift execution could be seen as mercy, a prolonged execution as part of the sentence.
Then, the wheel could be raised so that the condemned person remained visible to the crowd. Once again, the spectacle was as important as the punishment.
The wheel was used in different parts of Europe until the 19th century. Its abolition did not happen simultaneously. Each kingdom and state withdrew the practice from its legislation at different times. In Bavaria, it was abolished in 1813. In other Germanic regions, it survived for a few more decades.
A common object had become so associated with execution that it needed to be removed from the very language of justice.