Impalement, as a method oftorture and execution, is thepenetration of a human by an object such as a stake, pole, spear, or hook, often by the complete or partial perforation of thetorso. It was particularly used in response to "crimes against the state" and is regarded across a number of cultures as a very harsh form ofcapital punishment and recorded inmyth and art. Impalement was also used during times of war tosuppressrebellions, punishtraitors or collaborators, and punishbreaches of military discipline.
Offences where impalement was occasionally employed included contempt for the state's responsibility for safe roads and trade routes by committinghighway robbery orgrave robbery, violating state policies ormonopolies, or subverting standards for trade. Offenders have also been impaled for a variety of cultural, sexual, and religious reasons.
References to impalement inBabylonia and theNeo-Assyrian Empire are found as early as the 18th century BC.
Impaling an individual along the body length has been documented in several cases, and the merchantJean de Thevenot provides an eyewitness account of this from 17th-century Egypt, in the case of a man condemned to death for the use of false weights:[1]
They lay themalefactor upon his belly, with his hands tied behind his back, then they slit up hisfundament with a razor, and throw into it a handful of paste that they have in readiness, which immediately stops the blood. After that, they thrust up into his body a very long stake as big as a man's arm, sharp at the point and tapered, which they grease a little before; when they have driven it in with a mallet, till it come out at his breast, or at his head or shoulders, they lift him up, and plant this stake very straight in the ground, upon which they leave him so exposed for a day. One day I saw a man upon the pole, who was sentenced to continue so for three hours alive and that he might not die too soon, the stake was not thrust up far enough to come out at any part of his body, and they also put a stay or rest upon the pale, to hinder the weight of his body from making him sink down upon it, or the point of it from piercing him through, which would have presently killed him: In this manner he was left for some hours, (during which time he spoke) and turning from one side to another, prayed those that passed by to kill him, making a thousand wry mouths and faces, because of the pain he suffered when he stirred himself, but after dinner, the Basha sent one to dispatch him; which was easily done, by making the point of the stake come out at his breast, and then he was left till next morning, when he was taken down, because he stunk horridly.
The length of time which one managed to survive upon the stake is reported as quite varied, from a few seconds or minutes[2] to a few hours[3] or even a few days.[4] TheDutch overlords atBatavia seem to have been particularly proficient in prolonging the lifetime of the impaled, one witnessing a man surviving six days on the stake,[5] another hearing from local surgeons that some could survive eight days or more.[6] A critical determinant for survival length seems to be preciselyhow the stake was inserted: If it went into the "interior" parts, vital organs could easily be damaged, leading to a swift death. However, by letting the stake follow the spine, the impalement procedure would not damage the vital organs, and the person could survive for several days.[7]
Weather and seasons also affected duration of life after impalement. One example given of weather affecting death is noted by Stavorinus. A man was impaled following the spine. A light shower fell the next day. He died half an hour later. Stavorinus also mentions there having been instances of impalement during the dry season, in which people have survived for eight days or more without food or drink. A guard would be stationed near the site of execution to prevent food or drink to be given. A surgeon also explained to Stavorinus, how rain and other wet weather caused a quicker death. Water enters the wound caused by impalement. The wound then "mortifies" and causes gangrene to attack more "noble parts," causing "death almost immediately."[6]
Alternatively, the impalement could be transversely performed, as in the frontal-to-dorsal direction, that is, from front (throughabdomen,[8]chest[9] or directly through the heart[10]) to back orvice versa.[11]
In theHoly Roman Empire (and elsewhere inCentral/Eastern Europe), women who killed their newborn babies were placed in open graves, and stakes were hammered into their hearts, particularly if their cases contained any implications ofwitchcraft. A detailed description of an execution that was carried out in this manner comes from 17th-centuryKassa,Hungary (now Košice, easternSlovakia). The case of a woman who was to be executed forinfanticide involved an executioner and two assistants. First, a grave some one-and-a-halfell deep was dug. The woman was then placed within it, her hands and feet were secured by driving nails through them. The executioner placed a small thorn bush upon her face. He then placed, and held vertically, a wooden stave on her heart in order to mark its location, while his assistants piled earth on the woman, keeping her head free of earth at the behest of the clerics, because to do otherwise would have quickened the death process. Once the earth had been piled upon her, the executioner used a pair of tongs to grab a rod made of iron, which had been made red hot. He positioned the glowing iron rod beside the wooden stave, and as one of his assistants hammered the rod in, the other assistant emptied a trough of earth upon the woman's head. It is said that a scream was heard, and the earth moved upwards for a moment, before it was all over.[12]
Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, travelling on botanical research in the Levant 1700–1702, observed both ordinary longitudinal impalement, but also a method called "gaunching", in which the condemned is hoisted up by means of a rope over a row of sharp metal hooks. He is then released, and depending on how the hooks enter his body, he may survive in impaled condition for a few days.[13]Forty years earlier than de Tournefort, de Thévenot described much the same process, adding that it was seldom used because it was regarded as too cruel.[14] Some 80 years prior to de Thevenot, in 1579, Hans Jacob Breuning von Buchenbach[15] witnessed a variant of the gaunching ritual. A large iron hook was fixed on the horizontal cross-bar of the gallows and the individual was forced upon this hook, piercing him from the abdomen through his back, so that he hung from it, hands, feet and head downward. On top of the cross bar, the executioner situated himself and performed various torture on the impaled man below him.[16]
While gaunching as de Tournefort describes involves the erection of a scaffold, it seems that in the city ofAlgiers, hooks were embedded in the city walls, and on occasion, people were thrown upon them from the battlements.
Thomas Shaw,[17] who was chaplain for theLevant Company stationed at Algiers during the 1720s, describes the various forms of executions practised as follows:[18]
... but the Moors and Arabs are either impaled for the same crime, or else they are hung up by the neck, over the battlements of the city walls, or else they are thrown upon thechingan or hooks that are fixed all over the walls below, where sometimes they break from one hook to another, and hang in the most exquisite torments, thirty or forty hours.
According to one source, these hooks in the wall as an execution method were introduced with the construction of the new city gate in 1573. Before that time, gaunching as described by de Tournefort was in use.[19] As for the actualfrequency of throwing persons on hooks in Algiers, Capt. Henry Boyde notes[20] that in his own 20 years of captivity there, he knew of only one case where a Christian slave who had murdered his master had met that fate, and "not above" two or three Moors besides.[21] Taken captive in 1596, the barber-surgeon William Davies relates something of the heights involved when thrown upon hooks (although it is somewhat unclear if this relates specifically to the city of Algiers, or elsewhere in the Barbary States): "Their ganshing is after this manner: he sitteth upon a wall, being fivefathoms [30 feet, or about 9m] high, within two fathoms [12 feet or about 3.6m] of the top of the wall; right under the place where he sits, is a strong iron hook fastened, being very sharp; then he is thrust off the wall upon this hook, with some part of his body, and there he hangeth, sometimes two or three days, before he dieth." Davies adds that "these deaths are very seldom", but that he had personally witnessed it.[22]
A slightly variant way of executing people by means of impalement was to force an iron meat hook beneath a person's ribs and hang him up to die slowly. This technique was in 18th-century Ottoman-controlled Bosnia called thecengela,[23] but the practice is also attested in 1770sDutch Suriname as a punishment meted out to rebellious slaves.[24]
A recurring horror story on many websites and popular media outlets is thatJapanese soldiers duringWorld War II inflicted bamboo torture upon prisoners of war.[25] The victim was supposedly tied securely in place above a young bamboo shoot. Over several days, the sharp, fast growing shoot would first puncture, then completely penetrate the victim's body, eventually emerging through the other side. However, no conclusive evidence exists that this form of impalement ever actually happened.[26]
The earliest known use of impalement as a form of execution occurred in civilizations of the ancient Near East. TheCode of Hammurabi, promulgated about 1772 BC[27] by theBabylonian kingHammurabi specifies impaling for a woman who killed her husband for the sake of another man.[28] In the lateIsin/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.[29] From the royal archives of the city ofMari, most of it also roughly contemporary to Hammurabi, it is known that soldiers taken captive in war were on occasion impaled.[30] Roughly contemporary with Babylonia under Hammurabi, king Siwe-Palar-huhpak ofElam made official edicts in which he threatened the allies of his enemies with impalement, among other terrible fates.[31] For acts of perceived great sacrilege, some individuals, in diverse cultures, have been impaled for their effrontery. For example, roughly 1200 BC, merchants ofUgarit express deep concern to each other that a fellow citizen is to be impaled in the Phoenician townSidon, due to some "great sin" committed against the patron deity of Sidon.[32]
During Dynasty 19,Merneptah hadLibu 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.[33] The relevant determinative forḫt ("stake") depicts an individual transfixed through the abdomen.[34] Other Egyptian kings employing impalements includeSobekhotep II,Akhenaten,Seti, andRamesses IX.[34]
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Evidence by carvings and statues is found as well from theNeo-Assyrian Empire (c. 934–609 BC). The image of the impaledJudeans is a detail from the public commemoration of the Assyrian victory in 701 BC after thesiege of Lachish,[35] under KingSennacherib (r. 705–681 BC), who proceeded similarly against the inhabitants ofEkron during the same campaign.[36] From Sennacherib's fatherSargon 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.[37] A peculiarity[38] about the "Neo-Assyrian" way of impaling was that the stake was "driven into the body immediately under the ribs",[39] 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 theirmight that they took pride in. Neo-Assyrian KingAshurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 BC) was evidently proud enough of his bloody work that he committed it to monument and eternal memory as follows:[40]
I cut off their hands, I burned them with fire, a pile of the living men and of heads over against the city gate I set up, men I impaled on stakes, the city I destroyed and devastated, I turned it into mounds and ruin heaps, the young men and the maidens in the fire I burned
Paul Kern,[41] 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.[42]
Although impalement of rebels and enemies is particularly well-attested from Neo-Assyrian times, the 14th-century BCMitanni kingShattiwaza charges his predecessor, the usurperShuttarna III for having delivered unto the (Middle) Assyrians[43] several nobles, who had them promptly impaled.[44] Some scholars have said, though, that it is only with KingAshur-bel-kala (r. 1074–1056) that there is solid evidence that punishments like flaying and impaling came into use.[45] 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[46] contains in its paragraph 51 the following injunction against abortion:[47]
If a woman with her consent brings on a miscarriage, they seize her, and determine her guilt. On a stake they impale her, and do not bury her; and if through the miscarriage she dies, they likewise impale her and do not bury her.
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The Greek historian Herodotus recounts that, whenDarius I, king ofPersia, conqueredBabylon, he impaled 3000 Babylonians.[48] In theBehistun Inscription, Darius himself boasts of having impaled his enemies.[49] Darius speaks proudly of the ruthlessness with which these revolts were put down. In BabylonNidintu-Bel was impaled along with 49 of his companions:
Behistun Inscription:Then inBabylon I impaled thatNidintu-Bel and the nobles who were with him, I executed forty-nine, this is what I did inBabylon[50]
In 522 BC Phraortes proclaimed that he was a descendant of the Median kingCyaxares and took the throne, he seizedEcbatana, 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:
Behistun Inscription:Darius the King says: Thereafter this Phraortes with a few horsemen fled, a district named Raga, inMedia along there he went off, Thereafter I sent an army in pursuit Phraortes, seized, was led to me.I cut off his nose and ears and tongue, and put out one eye he was kept bound at my palace entrance, all the people saw him.Afterward I impaled him at Ecbatana and the men who were his foremost followers, those at Ecbatana within the fortress I (flayed and) hung out (their hides, stuffed with straw).[51]
ABible passage in theBook of Esther concerning the fate of the 5th-century BC Persian ministerHaman 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 toMordecai. The English Standard Version of Esther 5:14 describes this ashanging,[52] whereas The New International Reader's version opts forimpalement.[53]The AssyriologistPaul Haupt opts for impalement in his 1908 essay "Critical notes on Esther",[54] while Benjamin Shaw has an extended discussion of the topic on the website ligonier.org from 2012.[55]
Other passages in theBible may allude to the practice of impalement, such asII Samuel 21:9 concerning the fate of the sons ofSaul, where some English translations use the verb "impale", but others use "hang".[56]
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 ofhanging upon a pole, rather than focusing upon the stake's actualpenetration of the body.
From John Granger Cook, 2014: "Stipes is Seneca's term for the object used for impalement. This narrative and hisEp. 14.5 are the only two textually explicit references to impalement in Latin texts:"
I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made differently by different [fabricators]; some individuals suspended their victims with heads inverted toward the ground; some drove a stake (stipes) through their excretory organs/genitals; others stretched out their [victims'] arms on a patibulum [cross bar]; I see racks, I see lashes ...
Video istic cruces ne unius quidem generis sed aliter ab aliis fabricatas; capite quidam conuersos in terram suspendere, alii per obscena stipitem egerunt, alii brachia patibulo explicuerunt; video fidiculas, video uerbera ...[57]
Within theHoly Roman Empire, in article 131 of the 1532Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, the following punishment was stated for women found guilty ofinfanticide. 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 beburied alive, and then a stake would be driven through her heart.[58] Similarly, burial alive, combined with transversal impalement is attested as an early execution method for people found guilty ofadultery. The 1348 statutes ofZwickau 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.[59] A similar punishment by impalement for a proven male adulterer is mentioned in a 13th-century ordinance forMoravian mining cityJihlava (then and German Iglau),[60] whereas in a 1340 Vienna statute, the husband of a woman caughtin flagrante in adultery could, if he wished to, demand that his wife and her lover be impaled, or alternatively demand a monetary restitution.[61] Occasionally, women found guilty ofwitchcraft have been condemned to be impaled. In 1587Kiel, 101-year-old Sunde Bohlen was, on being condemned as a witch, buried alive, and afterwards had a stake driven through her heart.[62]
Rapists ofvirgins 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.[63] Serving as an example of the fate of a child molester, in August 1465 inZurich, 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.[64]
Cases oflongitudinal impalement typically occur in the context of war or as a punishment forrobbery, the latter being attested to as the practice inCentral andEastern Europe. During theDefenestration of Prague in 1419, theHussites impaled councilors to the king on pikes.[65]
Individuals accused of collaborating with the enemy have, on occasion, been impaled. In 1632 during theThirty Years' War, the German officer Fuchs was impaled on suspicion ofdefecting to theSwedes,[66] a Swedish corporal was likewise impaled for trying to defect to the Germans.[67] The Swedes continued this practise during theScanian War (1675-1679), especially in the case of deserters and those perceived as traitors. In 1654, under theOttomansiege of theVenetian garrison atCrete, several peasants were impaled for supplying provisions to the besieged.[68] Likewise in 1685, some Christians were impaled by the Hungarians for having provided supplies to the Turks.[69]
In 1677, a particularly brutal German General Kops leading the forces ofHoly Roman EmperorLeopold I who wanted to keep Hungary dominated by the Germans, rather than allow it to become dominated by the Turks, began impaling andquartering his Hungarian subjects/opponents. An opposing general on the Hungarian side,Wesselényi [hu], responded in kind, byflaying 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.[70] After theTreaty of The Hague (1720),Sicily fell underHabsburg 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.[71] In the short-lived 1784Horea 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 ofHorea'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.[72] After the revolt was crushed by early 1785, some 150 rebels are said to have been impaled.[73]
From 1748 onwards, German regiments organized manhunts on "robbers" in Hungary/Croatia, impaling those who were caught.[74]
Occasionally, individual murderers were perceived to have been so heinous that standard punishments likebeheading or beingbroken 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 inIvančice 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.[75]
Other such accounts of "heinous murderers" in which impalement is a prominent element include cases in 1504 and 1519,[76] 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,[77] the head of thePappenheimer family in 1600,[78] and an unnamed murderer executed in Breslau in 1615, who under torture had confessed to 96 acts of murder by arson.[79]
During the 15th century,Vlad III ("Dracula"), Prince ofWallachia, is credited as the first notable figure to prefer this method of execution during the late medieval period,[80] and became so notorious for its liberal employment that among his several nicknames he was known as "Vlad the Impaler".[81] 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 avariety 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,[82] and criminals in his domain, whether they were members of theboyar nobility or peasants, and eventually to any among his subjects that displeased him. Following the multiple campaigns against the invadingOttoman Turks, Vlad would never show mercy to hisprisoners of war. AfterThe Night Attack of Vlad Țepeș in mid-June 1462 failed to assassinate the Ottoman sultan, the road toTârgoviște, the capital of Vlad'sprincipality of Wallachia, eventually became inundated in a "forest" of 20,000 impaled and decaying corpses, and it is reported thatMehmet II's invading army of Turks turned back to Constantinople in 1462 after encountering thousands of impaled corpses along theDanube River.[82]Woodblock prints from the era portray his victims impaled from either thefrontal or thedorsal 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 therectum orvagina.[83] The exit wound could be near the victim's neck, shoulders or mouth.[84]
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 ofSeveryn 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 ofBohdan Khmelnytsky and enabled the numerous Jews to be saved. The prince, a poor strategist, asPaweł 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 chiefMaksym Kryvonis (Nez Crooked).Aleksander Kostka-Napierski, the leader of the peasant uprising inPodhale, was impaled on a stake in 1651.
Colonel and ataman Sukharuka, a Cossack envoy in the novel and filmWith Fire and Sword, and Donets, a Cossack colonel, Horpyna's brother, were sentenced to this penalty. This also happened to the Cossackbandurist Taras Weresaj, the hero ofJacek Komuda's novelBohun.
One of the most famous Polish films where the execution of this punishment can be seen is the filmPan Wołodyjowski (and the TV seriesPrzygody pana Michała, Mr Michael's adventures), whose script was based on theTrilogy byHenryk 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 ofJędrzej Kitowicz; the convict was strung on his back, not on his stomach (as in Jędrzej Kitowicz).
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.[85]
TheOttoman Empire used impalement during, and before, thelast siege of Constantinople in 1453.[80] During the buildup phase to the great siege the year before, in 1452, the sultan declared that all ships sailing up or down through theBosphorus had to anchor at his fortress there, for inspection. One Venetian captain, Antonio Rizzo, sought to defy the ban, but his ship was hit by a cannonball. He and his crew were picked up from the waters, the crew members to be beheaded (orsawn asunder according toNiccolò Barbaro[86]), whereas Rizzo was impaled.[87] In the early days of the siege in May 1453, contingents of the Ottoman army made mop-up operations at minor fortifications likeTherapia and Studium. The surrendered soldiers, some 40 individuals from each place, were impaled.[88]
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.[89] 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.[90] Jean de Thévenot, traveling in the Ottoman Empire and its territories like Egypt in the late 1650s, emphasizes theregional 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.[91] 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.[92] Travelling to Smyrna and Constantinople in 1843, Stephen Massett[93] 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.[94] Writing around 1850, the archaeologistAusten Henry Layard mentions that the latest case he was acquainted with happened "about ten years ago" in Baghdad, on four rebel Arab sheikhs.[95]
Impalement ofpirates, rather than highway robbers, is also occasionally recorded. In October 1767 Hassan Bey, who had preyed on Turkish ships in theEuxine Sea for a number of years, was captured and impaled, even though he had offered 500,000 ducats for his pardon.[96]
During theOttoman rule of Greece, impalement became an important tool ofpsychological warfare, intended to inflict terror into the peasant population. By the 18th century, Greek bandits turnedguerrilla insurgents (known asklephts) 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.[97] 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.[98]
Impalement was, on occasion, aggravated with being set over a fire, the impaling stake acting as aspit, so that the impaled victim might beroasted alive.[99] Among other severities,Ali Pasha, anAlbanian-born Ottoman noble who ruledIoannina, 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:[100]
Here criminals have been roasted alive over a slow fire, impaled, and skinned alive; others have had their extremities chopped off, and some have been left to perish with the skin of the face stripped over their necks. At first I doubted the truth of these assertions, but they were abundantly confirmed to me by persons of undoubted veracity. Some of the most respectable inhabitants of loannina assured me that they had sometimes conversed with these wretched victims on the very stake, being prevented from yielding to their torturing requests for water by fear of a similar fate themselves. Our own resident, as he was once going into theserai of Litaritza, saw a Greek priest, the leader of a gang of robbers, nailed alive to the outer wall of the palace, in sight of the whole city.
During theGreek War of Independence (1821–1832), Greek revolutionaries and civilians were tortured and executed by impalement. A German witness of theConstantinople massacre (April 1821) narrates the impalement of about 65 Greeks by a Turkish mob.[101] In April 1821, thirty Greeks from the Ionian island of Zante (Zakynthos) had been impaled inPatras. This was recorded in the diary of the French consul Hughes Pouqueville and published by his brotherFrançois Pouqueville.[102]Athanasios Diakos, a klepht and later a rebel military commander, was captured after theBattle of Alamana (1821), nearThermopylae, and after refusing to convert to Islam and join the Ottoman army, he was impaled.[103] Diakos became amartyr for a Greek independence and was later honored as a national hero.[104][105] Non-combatant Greeks (elders, monks, women etc.) were impaled around Athens during the first year of the revolution (1821).[106]
Impaling perceived rebels was an attested practice in other parts of the empire as well, such as the 1809 quelling of a Bosnian revolt,[107] and during theSerbian Revolution (1804–1835) against the Ottoman Empire, about 200 Serbs were impaled inBelgrade in 1814.[108] Historian James J. Reid,[109] in hisCrisis 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 theCretan insurrection of 1866–69, and during the insurrections inBosnia and Herzegovina in 1876–77.[110] In the Nobel Prize-winning novelThe Bridge on the Drina, byIvo Andrić, in the third chapter is described impalement of a Bosnian Serb, who was trying to sabotage the bridge's construction.
Aurora Mardiganian, a survivor of theArmenian genocide of 1915–1923, discussing the scene of crucifixion in the biographical film of her life, stated that the actual killings were by impalement.[111]
"The Turks didn't make their crosses like that. The Turks made little pointed crosses. They took the clothes off the girls. They made them bend down, and after raping them, they made them sit on the pointed wood, through the vagina. That's the way they killed - the Turks. Americans have made (the film) a more civilized way. They can't show such terrible things."
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."[112]
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