Methods of Execution: Impalement

 Methods of Execution: Impalement

 

 

Impalement as a method of  execution involves a person being pierced with a long stake. 

The penetration could be through the sides, through the rectum, through the vagina, or through the mouth.  It was used particularly in response to "crimes against the state" and regarded across a number of cultures as a very harsh form of capital punishment. 

Impalement was also used during wartime to suppress rebellion, punish traitors or collaborators, and as a punishment for breaches of military discipline. 

This method leads to a painful death, sometimes taking days. The stake would often be planted in the ground, leaving the impaled person suspended to die.  In some forms of impalement, the stake would be inserted so as to avoid immediate death, and would function as a plug to prevent blood loss.

After preparation of the victim, perhaps including public torture and rape, the victim was stripped and an incision was made in the perineum between the genitals and rectum. A stout pole with a blunt end was inserted.A blunt end would push vital organs to the side, greatly slowing death. The pole would often come out of the body at the top of the sternum and be placed against the lower jaw so that the victim would not slide farther down the pole. 

Often, the victim was hoisted into the air after partial impalement. Gravity and the victim’s own struggles would cause him to slide down the pole. This method is extremely painful and was used by Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Ottoman Empire until the 20th century.

During the 15th century, Vlad III ("Dracula"), 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.  Following the multiple campaigns against the invading Ottoman Turks, Vlad would never show mercy to his prisoners of war. The capital of Vlad's principality of Wallachia, eventually became inundated in a "forest" of 20,000 impaled and decaying corpses, and it is reported that Mehmet II's invading army of Turks turned back to Constantinople in 1462 after encountering thousands of impaled corpses along the Danube River.