10. Impalement has been used since Ancient Mesopotamia to kill people slowly
Impalement dates back to at least the Code of Hammurabi, a Mesopotamian law code from c.1772 BC. Broadly speaking, there are two forms of Impalement, the execution of someone by inserting a sharpened implement into their body. Longitudinal Impalement inserted a pointed stake into the victim’s anus so that it followed the vertical direction of the body, ideally so that the tip of the stake came out of the mouth, as in the illustration above, or chest cavity. Transversal Impalement saw the stake shoved through any part of the body to the other side, for example through the heart or stomach.
Depending on the type of Impalement and hence which internal organs were damaged, victims could survive anywhere from a few seconds to several days. History has many examples of leaders noted for their penchant for impaling enemies. Emperor Nero, for example, would make victims dig their own graves and plant a stake at the bottom before executing them. But history’s most famous impaler was, of course, Vlad Țepeș, ‘the Impaler’, who created a ‘forest’ of 20,000 impaled Turks to scare off his enemies, and once ate dinner whilst dozens of Transylvanian Saxons were impaled in front of him.