Iron maiden (torture device)

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An iron maiden is an iron cabinet built to torture or kill a person by piercing the body with sharp objects (such as knives, spikes, or nails), while he or she is forced to remain standing. The condemned bleeds profusely and is weakened slowly, eventually dying because of blood loss, or perhaps asphyxiation. It is often associated with the Middle Ages, but in fact was not invented until the late 18th century.

The most famous device was the iron maiden of Nuremberg. Historians have ascertained that Johann Philipp Siebenkees created the history of it as a hoax in 1793. According to Siebenkees' colportage, it was first used on August 14, 1515, to execute a coin forger. The Nuremberg iron maiden was actually built in the late 18th century as a probable misinterpretation of a medieval "Schandmantel" ("cloak of shame"), which was made of wood and tin but without spikes. Accounts of the iron maiden cannot be found from any period older than 1793, although most other medieval torture devices were extensively catalogued.

The iron maiden of Nuremberg was anthropomorphic. It was probably styled after Mary, the mother of Jesus, with a carved likeness of her on the face. The "maiden" was about 7 feet (2.1m) tall and 3 feet (0.9m) wide, had double doors, and was big enough to contain an adult man. Inside the tomb-sized container, the iron maiden was fitted with dozens of sharp spikes. Several nineteenth century iron maidens are on display in museums around the world, but it is unlikely that they were ever employed. The iron maiden probably was not used until the twentieth century.

Augustine of Hippo refers to the death of Marcus Aurelius Regulus in The City of God, Book I, Chapter 15. He is recorded therein as having been executed by the Carthaginians who "packed him into a tight wooden box, spiked with sharp nails on all sides, so that he could not lean in any direction without being pierced" (translation by Gerald G. Walsh, S.J., Demetrius B. Zema, S.J., Grace Monahan, O.S.U., and Daniel J. Honan).

In 2003, Time magazine reported that they had discovered an iron maiden, showing signs of use, in the administrative compound of the Iraqi national Olympic committee in central Baghdad, which they linked to reports of torture carried out upon Iraqi athletes by the committee's head, Uday Hussein.

Sources

Schild, Wolfgang (2000). Die eiserne Jungfrau. Dichtung und Wahrheit (Schriftenreihe des Mittelalterlichen Kriminalmuseums Rothenburg o. d. Tauber Nr. 3). Rothenburg ob der Tauber:
Jürgen Scheffler Der Folterstuhl - Metamorphosen eines Museumsobjektes. Zeitenblicke. .
Vortrag von Klaus Graf: Mordgeschichten und Hexenerinnerungen. Mondzauberin. .
Das leckt die Kuh nicht ab - "Zufällige Gedanken" zu Schriftlichkeit und Erinnerungskultur der Strafgerichtsbarkeit. .

Notes

External links

http://www.occasionalhell.com/infdevice/detail.php?recordID=Iron%20Maiden
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,444889,00.html

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