Antiquity Mesopotamia and the ancient Near East The earliest known use of impalement as a form of execution occurred in civilizations of the ancient Near East. 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. In the late
Isin/Larsa period, from about the same time, it seems that, in some city states, mere adultery on the wife's part (without murder of her husband mentioned) could be punished by impalement. From the royal archives of the city of
Mari, most of it also roughly contemporary to Hammurabi, it is known that soldiers taken captive in war were on occasion impaled. Roughly contemporary with Babylonia under Hammurabi, king Siwe-Palar-huhpak of
Elam made official edicts in which he threatened the allies of his enemies with impalement, among other terrible fates. For acts of perceived great sacrilege, some individuals, in diverse cultures, have been impaled for their effrontery. For example, roughly 1200 BC, merchants of
Ugarit express deep concern to each other that a fellow citizen is to be impaled in the Phoenician town
Sidon, due to some "great sin" committed against the patron deity of Sidon.
Pharaonic Egypt During Dynasty 19,
Merneptah had
Libu prisoners of war impaled ("caused to be set upon a stake") to the south of Memphis, following an attempted invasion of Egypt during his Regnal Year 5. The relevant determinative for
ḫt ("stake") depicts an individual transfixed through the abdomen. Other Egyptian kings employing impalements include
Sobekhotep II,
Akhenaten,
Seti, and
Ramesses IX. under King
Sennacherib (r. 705–681 BC), who proceeded similarly against the inhabitants of
Ekron during the same campaign. From Sennacherib's father
Sargon II's time (r. 722–705 BC), a relief from his palace at Khorsabad shows the impalement of 14 enemies during an attack on the city of Pazashi. A peculiarity about the "Neo-Assyrian" way of impaling was that the stake was "driven into the body immediately under the ribs", rather than along the full body length. For the Neo-Assyrians, mass executions seem to have been not only designed to instill terror and to enforce obedience, but also, it can seem, as proofs of their
might that they took pride in. Neo-Assyrian King
Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 BC) was evidently proud enough of his bloody work that he committed it to monument and eternal memory as follows: Paul Kern, in his (1999)
Ancient Siege Warfare, provides some statistics on how different Neo-Assyrian kings from the times of Ashurnasirpal II commemorated their punishments of rebels. Although impalement of rebels and enemies is particularly well-attested from Neo-Assyrian times, the 14th-century BC
Mitanni king
Shattiwaza charges his predecessor, the usurper
Shuttarna III for having delivered unto the (Middle) Assyrians several nobles, who had them promptly impaled. Some scholars have said, though, that it is only with King
Ashur-bel-kala (r. 1074–1056) that there is solid evidence that punishments like flaying and impaling came into use. From the Middle Assyrian period, there is evidence about impalement as a form of punishment relative to other types of perceived crimes as well. The law code discovered and deciphered by Otto Schroeder contains in its paragraph 51 the following injunction against abortion:
Achaemenid Persia is recorded in the Behistun Inscription by King Darius I which contains mutilation and impaling the captives; leaders of the rebellions from different colonies of ancient
Persia are shown in chains from neck to legs, Gaumāta lies under the boot of Darius The Greek historian Herodotus recounts that, when
Darius I, king of
Persia, conquered
Babylon, he impaled 3000 Babylonians. In the
Behistun Inscription, Darius himself boasts of having impaled his enemies. Darius speaks proudly of the ruthlessness with which these revolts were put down. In Babylon
Nidintu-Bel was impaled along with 49 of his companions: , I am king in
Media" In 522 BC Phraortes proclaimed that he was a descendant of the Median king
Cyaxares and took the throne, he seized
Ecbatana, the capital of Media and rebelled against the Achaemenid yoke, this revolt was suppressed by Darius king of Persia and Phraortes was captured and impaled:
Biblical evidence A
Bible passage in the
Book of Esther concerning the fate of the 5th-century BC Persian minister
Haman and his ten sons has been treated differently by different translators, leading to an ambiguity as to whether they were impaled or hanged. The passage explains that Haman conspired to have all the Jews in the empire killed but his plan was thwarted, and he was given the punishment he had thought to mete out to
Mordecai. The English Standard Version of Esther 5:14 describes this as
hanging, whereas The New International Reader's version opts for
impalement. The Assyriologist
Paul Haupt opts for impalement in his 1908 essay "Critical notes on Esther", while Benjamin Shaw has an extended discussion of the topic on the website ligonier.org from 2012. Other passages in the
Bible may allude to the practice of impalement, such as
II Samuel 21:9 concerning the fate of the sons of
Saul, where some English translations use the verb "impale", but others use "hang". Although we lack conclusive evidence either way for whether Hebrew law allowed for impalement, or for hanging (whether as a mode of execution or for display of the corpse), the Neo-Assyrian method of impalement as seen in carvings could, perhaps, equally easily be seen as a form of
hanging upon a pole, rather than focusing upon the stake's actual
penetration of the body.
Rome From John Granger Cook, 2014: "
Stipes is Seneca's term for the object used for impalement. This narrative and his
Ep. 14.5 are the only two textually explicit references to impalement in Latin texts:"
Europe Transversal impalement Within the
Holy Roman Empire, in article 131 of the 1532
Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, the following punishment was stated for women found guilty of
infanticide. Generally, they should be drowned, but 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. Similarly, burial alive, combined with transversal impalement is attested as an early execution method for people found guilty of
adultery. The 1348 statutes of
Zwickau allowed punishment of an adulterous couple in the following way: They were to be placed on top of each other in a grave, with a layer of thorns between them. Then, a single stake was to be hammered through them. A similar punishment by impalement for a proven male adulterer is mentioned in a 13th-century ordinance for
Moravian mining city
Jihlava (then and German Iglau), whereas in a 1340 Vienna statute, the husband of a woman caught
in flagrante in adultery could, if he wished to, demand that his wife and her lover be impaled, or alternatively demand a monetary restitution. Occasionally, women found guilty of
witchcraft have been condemned to be impaled. In 1587
Kiel, 101-year-old Sunde Bohlen was, on being condemned as a witch, buried alive, and afterwards had a stake driven through her heart. Rapists of
virgins and children are also attested to have been buried alive, with a stake driven through them. In one such judicial tradition, the rapist was to be 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. Serving as an example of the fate of a child molester, in August 1465 in
Zurich, Switzerland, Ulrich Moser was condemned to be impaled, for having sexually violated six 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.
Longitudinal impalement Cases of
longitudinal impalement typically occur in the context of war or as a punishment for
robbery, the latter being attested to as the practice in
Central and
Eastern Europe. During the
Defenestration of Prague in 1419, the
Hussites impaled councilors to the king on pikes. Individuals accused of collaborating with the enemy have, on occasion, been impaled. In 1632 during the
Thirty Years' War, the German officer Fuchs was impaled on suspicion of
defecting to the
Swedes, a Swedish corporal was likewise impaled for trying to defect to the Germans. The Swedes continued this practise during the
Scanian War (1675-1679), especially in the case of deserters and those perceived as traitors. In 1654, under the
Ottoman siege of the
Venetian garrison at
Crete, several peasants were impaled for supplying provisions to the besieged. Likewise in 1685, some Christians were impaled by the Hungarians for having provided supplies to the Turks. In 1677, a particularly brutal German General Kops leading the forces of
Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I who wanted to keep Hungary dominated by the Germans, rather than allow it to become dominated by the Turks, began impaling and
quartering his Hungarian subjects/opponents. An opposing general on the Hungarian side, , responded in kind, by
flaying alive Imperial troops, and fixing sharp iron hooks in fortress walls, upon which he threw captured Germans to be impaled. Finally, Emperor Leopold I had enough of the mutual bloodshed, and banished Kops in order to establish a needed cessation of hostilities. After the
Treaty of The Hague (1720),
Sicily fell under
Habsburg rule, but the locals deeply resented the German overlords. One parish priest (who exhorted his parishioners to kill the Germans) is said to have broken into joy when a German soldier arrived at his village, exclaiming that a whole eight days had gone by since he had last killed a German, and shot the soldier off his horse. The priest was later impaled. In the short-lived 1784
Horea Revolt against the Austrians and Hungarians, the rebels gained hold of two officers, whom they promptly impaled. On their side, the imperial troops got hold of
Horea's 13-year-old son, and impaled him. That seems to have merely inflamed the rebel leader's determination, although the revolt was quashed shortly afterwards. After the revolt was crushed by early 1785, some 150 rebels are said to have been impaled. From 1748 onwards, German regiments organized manhunts on "robbers" in Hungary/Croatia, impaling those who were caught.
Heinous murderers Occasionally, individual murderers were perceived to have been so heinous that standard punishments like
beheading or being
broken on the wheel were regarded as incommensurate with their crimes, and extended rituals of execution that might include impalement were devised. An example is that of Pavel Vašanský (Paul Waschansky in German transcript), who was executed on 1 March 1570 in
Ivančice in present-day Czech Republic, on account of 124 confessed murders (he was a roaming highwayman). He underwent a particularly gruelling execution procedure: first, his limbs were cut off and his nipples were ripped off with glowing pincers; he was then flayed, impaled and finally roasted alive. A pamphlet that purports to give Vašanský's verbatim confession, does not record how he was apprehended, nor what means of torture was used to extract his confessions. Other such accounts of "heinous murderers" in which impalement is a prominent element include cases in 1504 and 1519, as well as that of "Puschpeter", executed in 1575 for killing thirty people including six pregnant women whose unborn children he ate in the hope of thereby acquiring invisibility, the head of the
Pappenheimer family in 1600, and an unnamed murderer executed in Breslau in 1615, who under torture had confessed to 96 acts of murder by arson.
Vlad the Impaler print of Vlad III "Dracula" attending a mass impalement 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". 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 were 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,
Woodblock prints from the era portray his victims impaled from either the
frontal or the
dorsal or the rectal impalement method which consisted of a wood or metal pole being inserted through the body either front to back, or vertically, through the
rectum or
vagina. The exit wound could be near the victim's neck, shoulders or mouth.
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth The impalement was practiced on the south-eastern borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The punishment was applied to peasants who rebelled against their lords, but also to the nobility. Ukraine was the scene of many Cossack uprisings (for example that of
Severyn Nalyvaiko) crushed by the Poles. They most often expressed discontent of a social nature (cf. social revolt of the "
Haïdamaks") such as the subjugation of the free Ukrainian peasants to the Polish lords who had carved out large estates for themselves. The most important uprising was that of Bohdan Chmielnicki-Khmelnitsky. The hatred of the Poles and the Jews was at the origin of the pogroms perpetrated during crossings of Cossack armies. The echoes of this disaster reached, through Jewish traders, Western Europe and are still present in Hasidic songs. We know the story of the small army of the great lord of Volhynia, "kniaz" (Prince)
Jeremi Wiśniowiecki who, penetrating from the north, momentarily repelled the armies of
Bohdan Khmelnytsky and enabled the numerous Jews to be saved. The prince, a poor strategist, as
Paweł Jasienica writes, following the opinion of his contemporaries, made himself known for his cruelty towards the rebellious peasants, taken prisoner (beheadings, hangings and impalements in the squares of towns and villages) but it was only the answer to the exactions committed on the noble prisoners by the Cossack chief
Maksym Kryvonis (Nez Crooked).
Aleksander Kostka-Napierski, the leader of the peasant uprising in
Podhale, was impaled on a stake in 1651. Colonel and ataman Sukharuka, a Cossack envoy in the novel and film
With Fire and Sword, and Donets, a Cossack colonel, Horpyna's brother, were sentenced to this penalty. This also happened to the Cossack
bandurist Taras Weresaj, the hero of
Jacek Komuda's novel
Bohun. One of the most famous Polish films where the execution of this punishment can be seen is the film
Pan Wołodyjowski (and the TV series ''Przygody pana Michała, Mr Michael's adventures
), whose script was based on the Trilogy'' by
Henryk Sienkiewicz.
Azja Tuhaj-bejowicz was subjected to this punishment for betraying the Commonwealth in Pan Wołodyjowski. The method of execution in Mr. Wołodyjowski was different from the description of
Jędrzej Kitowicz; the convict was strung on his back, not on his stomach (as in Jędrzej Kitowicz).
Ottoman Empire Longitudinal impalement is an execution method often attested within the Ottoman Empire, for a variety of offenses, it was done mostly as a warning to others or to terrify.
Siege of Constantinople The
Ottoman Empire used impalement during, and before, the
last siege of Constantinople in 1453.), whereas Rizzo was impaled. In the early days of the siege in May 1453, contingents of the Ottoman army made mop-up operations at minor fortifications like
Therapia and Studium. The surrendered soldiers, some 40 individuals from each place, were impaled.
Civil crimes Within the Ottoman Empire, some civil crimes (rather than rebel activity/treasonous behavior), such as highway robbery, might be punished by impalement. For some periods at least, executions for civil crimes were claimed to have been rather rare in the Ottoman Empire.
Aubry de La Motraye lived in the realm for 14 years from 1699 to 1713 and claimed that he had not heard of twenty thieves in Constantinople during that time. As for highway robbers, who surely had been impaled, Aubry heard of only 6 such cases during his residence there. Staying at Aleppo from 1740 to 1754, Alexander Russell notes that in the 20 years gone by, there were no more than "half a dozen" public executions there. Jean de Thévenot, traveling in the Ottoman Empire and its territories like Egypt in the late 1650s, emphasizes the
regional variations in impalement frequency. Of Constantinople and Turkey, de Thévenot writes that impalement was "not much practised" and "very rarely put in practice." An exception he highlighted was the situation of Christians in Constantinople. If a Christian spoke or acted out against the "Law of Mahomet", or consorted with a Turkish woman, or broke into a mosque, then he might face impalement unless he converted to Islam. In contrast, de Thévenot says that in Egypt impalement was a "very ordinary punishment" against the Arabs there, whereas Turks in Egypt were strangled in prison instead of being publicly executed like the natives. Thus, the actual frequency of impalement within the Ottoman Empire varied greatly, not only from time to time, but also from place to place, and between different population groups in the empire. Highway robbers were still impaled into the 1830s, but one source says the practice was rare by then. Travelling to Smyrna and Constantinople in 1843, Stephen Massett was told by a man who witnessed the event that "just a few years ago", a dozen or so robbers were impaled at Adrianople. All of them, however, had been strangled prior to impalement. Writing around 1850, the archaeologist
Austen Henry Layard mentions that the latest case he was acquainted with happened "about ten years ago" in Baghdad, on four rebel Arab sheikhs. Impalement of
pirates, rather than highway robbers, is also occasionally recorded. In October 1767 Hassan Bey, who had preyed on Turkish ships in the
Euxine Sea for a number of years, was captured and impaled, even though he had offered 500,000 ducats for his pardon.
Klephts and rebels in Greece During the
Ottoman rule of Greece, impalement became an important tool of
psychological warfare, intended to inflict 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.
Thomas Smart Hughes, visiting Greece and Albania in 1812–13, says the following about his stay in Ioannina: During the
Greek War of Independence (1821–1832), Greek revolutionaries and civilians were tortured and executed by impalement. A German witness of the
Constantinople massacre (April 1821) narrates the impalement of about 65 Greeks by a Turkish mob. In April 1821, thirty Greeks from the Ionian island of Zante (Zakynthos) had been impaled in
Patras. This was recorded in the diary of the French consul Hughes Pouqueville and published by his brother
François Pouqueville.
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. Diakos became a
martyr for a Greek independence and was later honored as a national hero. Non-combatant Greeks (elders, monks, women etc.) were impaled around Athens during the first year of the revolution (1821).
Rebels elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire Impaling perceived rebels was an attested practice in other parts of the empire as well, such as the 1809 quelling of a Bosnian revolt, and during the
Serbian Revolution (1804–1835) against the Ottoman Empire, about 200 Serbs were impaled in
Belgrade in 1814. Historian James J. Reid, in his
Crisis of the Ottoman Empire: Prelude to Collapse 1839–1878, notes several instances of later use, in particular in times of crises, ordered by military commanders (if not, that is, directly ordered by the supreme authority possessed by the sultan). He notes late instances of impalement during rebellions (rather than cases of robbery) like the Bosnian revolt of 1852, during the
Cretan insurrection of 1866–69, and during the insurrections in
Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1876–77. In the Nobel Prize-winning novel
The Bridge on the Drina, by
Ivo Andrić, in the third chapter is described impalement of a Bosnian Serb, who was trying to sabotage the bridge's construction.
Armenian and Assyrian Genocide Aurora Mardiganian, a survivor of the
Armenian genocide of 1915–1923, discussing the scene of crucifixion in the biographical film of her life, stated that the actual killings were by impalement. A Russian clergyman who visited ravaged Christian villages in northwestern Persia claimed that he found the remains of several impaled people. He wrote: "The bodies were so firmly fixed, in some instances, that the stakes could not be withdrawn; it was necessary to saw them off and bury the victims as they were." ==References==