I went to an interesting museum exhibit. It was about old world torture methods. Now when I think of torture, what comes to mind is hurting or scaring someone until they tell you what you want to hear. You know, like water boarding. So I guess I thought that torture resulting in death would not be the case. I was wrong.

In fact the only exhibit of medieval weapons or devices used for torture that I remember them having were the thumb screws. Now these were more like clamps than screws. The clamp goes on the thumb joint and is then tightened. The victim would end up with a crushed thumb or thumbs, but that wouldn’t cause death.

All of the others were about making death as slow, scary and excruciating as possible. These medieval torture device inventers were some real sick puppies! Disembowelment seemed to be a regular theme. And making sure that the victim could see what exactly was being done to him (or her) was another recurring thing. I think the most disturbing was “the pear.” They stuck a pear shaped device in the victim’s mouth. As they turn a screw on the end the pear slowly expands. First teeth shatter. Then the jaw breaks. Then finally the jaw disconnects completely. It all made water boarding look pretty tame!

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