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Iron maiden

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This page is about the torture device. For the British rock band, see Iron Maiden.
File:Iron Maiden of Nuremberg.jpg
The Iron Maiden of Nuremberg

An iron maiden is an iron cabinet allegedly built to torture or kill a person by piercing his body with sharp objects (such as knives, spikes, or nails), while the victim is forced to remain standing. The victim bleeds profusely and is weakened slowly, eventually dying because of blood loss, or perhaps asphyxiation.

The most famous, and probably the first, device was the iron maiden of Nuremberg. Some claim Johann Philipp Siebenkees created the history of it as a hoax in 1793. According to the history, it was first used on August 14, 1515 to execute a coin forger. Critics claim the iron maiden was actually built in the 19th century as a misinterpretation of a medieval "Schandmantel" (infamy cloak), which was made of wood and tin but without spikes. The infamy cloak did not harm the body, but was used as a chastisement for poachers and prostitutes, who were made to wear it in public for a certain time.

Physical features

The iron maiden of Nuremberg was anthropomorphic. It was probably styled after the Mary, 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. Supposedly, they were designed so that when the doors were shut, the spikes skewered the victim, missing vital organs and permitting the victim to remain alive and upright. The spikes were also movable in order to accommodate each victim.

The condemned person was kept in an extremely confined space to maximize his level of suffering by claustrophobia. Mobility was nearly impossible, and if the victim was weakened by the ordeal, the piercing objects would remain in place and tear into the body even further, causing even more intense pain.

The doors of the maiden could be opened and closed one at a time, without giving the victim opportunity to escape. Supposedly, this was helpful when checking on the victim.

Supposed operation

Purportedly, the condemned prisoner had to pass through seven rooms with seven doors before his scheduled execution. At the end of a long corridor he found himself looking into the face of an iron wardrobe that vaguely resembled a female form. On the outside, the maiden appeared harmless and nonthreatening, while inside were hidden spikes of iron that were designed to torture slowly rather than kill.

The doors of the maiden were shut slowly, so that the very sharp points penetrated a man’s arms, and his legs in several places, along with his belly and chest, bladder, eyes, shoulders, and his buttocks, but not enough to kill him. Allegedly, the spikes were sometimes heated red hot as well to increase pain, or possibly cauterize the puncture wounds as to prolong suffering. Historical experts have theorized that the spikes on the inside of the doors may have been movable. They were thought to have been able to be repositioned and/or relocated depending on the individual requirements of the person’s body and their crime. The overall result would be more or less lethal and mutilating depending upon where the spikes were located.

The point of this deadly object was to impale the victim and inflict extreme pain and punishment – and also, like most instruments of torture, to intimidate the prisoner before actual use, so that he confessed.

Iron maidens in fiction

  • Bram Stoker wrote a short story about the iron maiden titled "The Squaw" (1893).
  • Roald Dahl's novel Matilda contains a device similar to an iron maiden called "the Chokey."
  • Alejandra Pizarnik wrote a short story about the Countess Bathory regarding Valentine Penrose's work which briefly details the countess' use of an iron maiden(1968). It has been reprinted in The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales, edited by Chris Baldick.
  • In the 1975 movie version of Tommy by Ken Russell [link], Tina Turner as the Acid Queen morphs into a highly stylized iron maiden with, presumably, LSD-filled syringes instead of spikes.
  • In Zork Zero, one of the torture devices in the Torture Chamber is an iron maiden.
  • A similar device is described by Franz Kafka in his short story "The Penal Colony" ("Die Strafkolonie"). The whole story is dedicated to witnessing the one final session of the torture device by the narrator. While Kafka's device does not envelop the whole body, the type of piercing described can well be compared to that of the iron maiden.
  • In Dark Cloud 2 (Dark Chronicle), an iron maiden is in one of the lower levels of Milane's Weapon Shop.
  • In Vagrant Story for PlayStation, the iron maiden is a series of three dungeons with difficult monsters and valuable treasures, where each room is named after a torture method.
  • In Resident Evil: Code Veronica, the character must retrieve a piano scroll from inside an iron maiden, however it appears that the iron maiden's latest victim was infected with the T-Virus, as when the doors are opened, his zombified corpse lurches out and attacks the character.
  • In Resident Evil 4, one of the strongest enemies is called an Iron Maiden, and resembles a Regenerator from the same game, only with spikes protruding from its body.
  • In Diablo II, Iron Maiden is one of the Necromancer's curses that reflects damage back at the attacking monster or player.
  • In the boss fight against the Puppet Master in Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, the player must destroy the magic dummies before the boss puts them in one of the four iron maidens; failure to prevent it will cause the dummy to swap places with the player, thus causing a huge amount of damage.
  • In the game Haunting Grounds, when Daniella chases Fiona; if the player goes into the torture chamber and hides inside the Iron Maiden, Daniella will come inside, search where you are, find you, and close the chambers. After that, she pulls a lever and Fiona is executed.
  • In Vagrant Story, an optional dungeon is called Iron Maiden, with a boss in the end that resembles an Indian goddess. The layout of the maze makes reference to the seven rooms with seven doors aforementioned.
  • In LucasArts' Escape From Monkey Island, if Guybrush examines the iron maiden torture device he screams "Iron Maiden! Excellent! I have no idea why I just said that." As noted above, "Iron Maiden! Excellent!" is actually a line from the film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
  • In the Hellboy comics, Hecate often appears in the guise of an iron maiden.
  • In The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror XVII, Moe gets killed by an iron maiden in the opening segment.
  • In Angela Carter's short story, "The Bloody Chamber," (a re-telling of the Bluebeard story) one of the wives is killed by torture in an iron maiden for an unspecified amount of time.
  • In Saw 2, the opening sequence shows a man with a device on his head simmiliar to an iron maiden, except that it only impales his head when it closes.

Known usage

The existence of "real" iron maidens is a subject of much debate, and their actual use in judicial proceedings or executions is highly questionable. The few existing examples are replicas made after their supposed periods of historical use and it is unlikely that these have ever been used for the purposes attributed to "historical" iron maidens.

The iron maiden at Nuremberg Castle was destroyed in the air raids of 1944 near Nuremberg, Germany.

An iron maiden was found in Iraq near the building housing the Iraqi Football Association in which Uday Hussein had an office.[1] Members of the Iraqi Olympic Team claim it was used against Uday's opponents and critics during Saddam Hussein's rule.


References

  1. ^ Aparisim Ghosh (2003). "Iron Maiden Found in Uday Hussein's Playground". TIME.com. Retrieved February 7. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

Sources

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