2. The torture of choice for the original “Dracula”, impalement suspends a tortured individual upon a pole, avoiding vital organs, where they must hang indefinitely.
As a method of both torture and execution, impalement consists of the aggressive penetration of victims by a pole. Used most commonly as a punishment for “crimes against the state”, appearing in civilizations and cultures around the world as among the harshest means of capital punishment, contrary to immediate assumptions impalement did not render a swift death. In fact, impalement, if done properly, permits the individual to survive for several days, with the longest known victim suffering for more than eight days. Multiple methods exist to accomplish the violent feat, including transversal or longitudinal impalement and bears striking similarities to bamboo torture.
The origins of the torture date to as early as ancient Babylon, with the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1772 BCE) detailing the punishment of impalement for women convicted of murdering her husband. A millennium later, the Neo-Assyrian King Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BCE) is recorded as impaling surviving Judeans after the Siege of Lachish. Ironically, in a reversal of fortunes for the Babylonians, Darius I of Persia would later impale 3,000 of their own in vengeance. Entering Europe and becoming a popular punishment for collaboration during the Thirty Years’ War, Vlad III of Wallachia’s impalement of more than 20,000 individuals earned him his immortality as “Dracula”.