Iron maiden (torture device)

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This article is about the torture device. For the band of the same name, see Iron Maiden. For other uses, see Iron maiden (disambiguation).
Various torture instruments. An iron maiden stands tall on the right.
Various torture instruments. An iron maiden stands tall on the right.

An iron maiden is a torture device, usually an iron cabinet, but can be built with wood or iron. It usually has a small closable opening so that the torturer can interrogate their victim and 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. Most iron maidens were made so the sharp points did not pierce vital organs, thus not immediately killing a person, in order to drag out the torturous death. The process involved the victim being locked inside the device by heavy padlocks, and was usually checked on every few hours to see whether the victim had died. It is often associated with the Middle Ages, but in fact was not invented until the late 18th century.[1]

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.[2] 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.[3]

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  1. ^ Vortrag Klaus Graf: "Das Hinrichtungswerkzeug "Eiserne Jungfrau" ist eine Fiktion des 19. Jahrhunderts, denn erst in der ersten Hälfte des 19. jahrhunderts hat man frühneuzeitliche Schandmäntel, die als Straf- und Folterwerkzeuge dienten und gelegentlich als "Jungfrau" bezeichnet wurden, innen mit eisernen Spitzen versehen und somit die Objekte den schaurigen Phantasien in Literatur und Sage angepaßt." ("The execution tool "Iron Maiden" is a fiction of the 19th century, because only since the first half of the 19th Century the early-modern-times' "cloaks of shame", which sometimes were called "maidens", were provided with iron spikes; and thus the objects were adapted to the dreadful fantasies in literature and legend.") Mordgeschichten und Hexenerinnerungen - das boshafte Gedächtnis auf dem Dorf, June 21, 2001 July 11, 2007
  2. ^ Wolfgang Schild: Die Eiserne Jungfrau, 2002
  3. ^ Ghosh, Bobby. Iron Maiden Found in Uday Hussein's Playground. Time magazine. Retrieved on 2008-02-14.

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