Skin Flaying, and face flaying has been a punishment or torture since early times ....
.... Recently, such is the new barbarity of the 21st century, that it seems to once again have become used to torture people, or take mementos of murdered victims.
A brief history of barbarism:
Under Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC), the Assyrians included the practice of flaying alive in both carvings, and official royal edicts. These graphically display the process as a warning (shock and awe), to those who oppose the Neo-Assyrian kings. The terrible warning was for those they captured, and the flaying seems, in particular, to be the fate meted out to rebel leaders.
Ashurnasirpal II: "I have made a pillar facing the city gate, and have flayed all the rebel leaders; I have clad the pillar in the flayed skins. I let the leaders of the conquered cities be flayed, and clad the city walls with their skins. The captives I have killed by the sword and flung on the dung heap, the little boys and girls were burnt." That this was a regular punishment meted out under the Assyrians, was reinforced with Sargon II (722–705 BC) another Assyrian King, who had Yahu-Bihdi, ruler of Hamath, flayed alive.
The Persians carried on this tradition. Sisamnes, a corrupt judge under Cambyses II of Persia, was said to have been flayed for accepting a bribe. Mani, the founding prophet of Manichaeism, was said to have been flayed (or beheaded) by Bahram I, who was a follower of the Zoroastrian reformer Kartir, who began to persecute the Manichaeans. He incarcerated Mani, who died in prison within a month, in 274 AD
Apparently the Romans had Rabbi Akiva (50–135 AD) flayed alive for publicly teaching the Torah.
Hypatia of Alexandria, a Neoplatonist philosopher, was murdered by a mob of Christian monks who accused her of paganism. They stripped her naked, skinned her with pot shards (or sea shells in one version), and then burned her remains in March 415 AD.
Saint Bartholomew the Apostle was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus from ancient Judea. One tradition has it that the Bartholomew was executed in Albanopolis, in Armenia. According to popular hagiography, the apostle was flayed alive and beheaded. In Michelangelo's The Last Judgment - St Bartholomew shows the knife of his martyrdom, and holds his flayed skin. It is thought that Michelangelo depicted himself as St Bartholomew in the picture.
In Scandinavia, fornaldarsögur (stories of mythical heroes equivalent to romances) such as the 'Örvar-Odds' saga from the mid-thirteenth century, often feature flaying episodes, where skin is removed during battle or part of a quest. In the example Oddr rips the face off his demonic opponent, but the tale also includes a cloak made from 'kings’ beards' (which could be flayed faces). In the Scandinavian tradition, the flaying can often be a story motif that signifies the noble transformation of the character from monster to ally ... but not always.
Elsewhere in Europe, there was a medieval notion of skin as memory, which meant that flaying featured in medieval romances like Arthur and Gorlagon, where the flaying was a form of punishment, threatened or inflicted in the course of legal procedures. In Arthur and Gorlagon, it is the fatal sentence for adultery and treason.
In 1303, King Edward I of England had a large amount of cash in the treasury of Westminster Abbey when it was robbed. He was pretty pissed off and arrested and interrogated 48 monks, three of them, including the sub-prior and sacrist, were found guilty of the robbery and flayed alive. Their skin was attached to three doors as a warning against robbers of Church and State. In fact there are at least six places in England where the church doors are said to have been overlaid with human hide. These are Hadstock, Copford, and Castle Hedingham, in Essex; the cathedrals of Rochester and of Worcester; and Westminster Abbey.
Recent research came to the conclusion that at least one 'preserved skin' on a Church in London came from a cow hide and was part of a 19th-century hoax - this in relation to a legend that in 991 AD, during a Viking raid in England, a Danish Viking is said to have been flayed by London locals for ransacking a church. However there could have been human hide a thousand years earlier ... the cow hide being nailed on in remembrance of the original event.
Elsewhere:
Mesoamerica
The Mayans in Central America seem to have flayed prisoners. As evidenced by probable flayed faces from the Copan Stela and other representations at Palenque. Xipe Totec, (Nahuatl: “Our Lord the Flayed One”) was the Mesoamerican god of spring and new vegetation who was venerated by both the Toltecs and Aztecs. As a symbol of the new vegetation, Xipe Totec wore the skin of a human victim—the “new skin” that covered the Earth in the spring. His statues and stone masks always show him wearing a freshly flayed skin.
In fact every era to date has reports of this torture. Allegations that Nazi Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie partly flayed a French Resistance fighter during his time at Lyon, 1942-44.
..... but more recently
Mexican cartel members 'flayed a boy's face off and gouged his eyes out' after the disappearance of 43 Mexican students in 2014. 113 people have been arrested, including 44 police officers in the hunt for the 43 missing students after they were abducted by corrupt police, and handed over to the Guerreros Unidos crime syndicate. Julio César Mondragón, was found dead the next morning with his eyes gouged out, and the skin flayed from his face, leaving only a bare skull ... all but two (another body was found later), of the rest disappeared, presumed dead.
In June 2016 the Taliban in Afghanistan captured 21-year-old labourer Fazl Ahmad after they accused one of Ahmad's distant relatives of killing an ex-Taliban commander in December 2015. They cut out his eyes, skinned him alive, and then threw him from a 10-storey cliff.
Barbarism never seems to go away ... each era seems doomed to relive the horrors off earlier times.
 |
| The Assyrians Flayed Prisoners Alive |
.... Recently, such is the new barbarity of the 21st century, that it seems to once again have become used to torture people, or take mementos of murdered victims.
A brief history of barbarism:
Under Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC), the Assyrians included the practice of flaying alive in both carvings, and official royal edicts. These graphically display the process as a warning (shock and awe), to those who oppose the Neo-Assyrian kings. The terrible warning was for those they captured, and the flaying seems, in particular, to be the fate meted out to rebel leaders.
Ashurnasirpal II: "I have made a pillar facing the city gate, and have flayed all the rebel leaders; I have clad the pillar in the flayed skins. I let the leaders of the conquered cities be flayed, and clad the city walls with their skins. The captives I have killed by the sword and flung on the dung heap, the little boys and girls were burnt." That this was a regular punishment meted out under the Assyrians, was reinforced with Sargon II (722–705 BC) another Assyrian King, who had Yahu-Bihdi, ruler of Hamath, flayed alive.
The Persians carried on this tradition. Sisamnes, a corrupt judge under Cambyses II of Persia, was said to have been flayed for accepting a bribe. Mani, the founding prophet of Manichaeism, was said to have been flayed (or beheaded) by Bahram I, who was a follower of the Zoroastrian reformer Kartir, who began to persecute the Manichaeans. He incarcerated Mani, who died in prison within a month, in 274 AD
Apparently the Romans had Rabbi Akiva (50–135 AD) flayed alive for publicly teaching the Torah.
Hypatia of Alexandria, a Neoplatonist philosopher, was murdered by a mob of Christian monks who accused her of paganism. They stripped her naked, skinned her with pot shards (or sea shells in one version), and then burned her remains in March 415 AD.
 |
| Michelangelo's 'The Last Judgment' - St Bartholomew. |
Saint Bartholomew the Apostle was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus from ancient Judea. One tradition has it that the Bartholomew was executed in Albanopolis, in Armenia. According to popular hagiography, the apostle was flayed alive and beheaded. In Michelangelo's The Last Judgment - St Bartholomew shows the knife of his martyrdom, and holds his flayed skin. It is thought that Michelangelo depicted himself as St Bartholomew in the picture.
In Scandinavia, fornaldarsögur (stories of mythical heroes equivalent to romances) such as the 'Örvar-Odds' saga from the mid-thirteenth century, often feature flaying episodes, where skin is removed during battle or part of a quest. In the example Oddr rips the face off his demonic opponent, but the tale also includes a cloak made from 'kings’ beards' (which could be flayed faces). In the Scandinavian tradition, the flaying can often be a story motif that signifies the noble transformation of the character from monster to ally ... but not always.
Elsewhere in Europe, there was a medieval notion of skin as memory, which meant that flaying featured in medieval romances like Arthur and Gorlagon, where the flaying was a form of punishment, threatened or inflicted in the course of legal procedures. In Arthur and Gorlagon, it is the fatal sentence for adultery and treason.
In 1303, King Edward I of England had a large amount of cash in the treasury of Westminster Abbey when it was robbed. He was pretty pissed off and arrested and interrogated 48 monks, three of them, including the sub-prior and sacrist, were found guilty of the robbery and flayed alive. Their skin was attached to three doors as a warning against robbers of Church and State. In fact there are at least six places in England where the church doors are said to have been overlaid with human hide. These are Hadstock, Copford, and Castle Hedingham, in Essex; the cathedrals of Rochester and of Worcester; and Westminster Abbey.
Recent research came to the conclusion that at least one 'preserved skin' on a Church in London came from a cow hide and was part of a 19th-century hoax - this in relation to a legend that in 991 AD, during a Viking raid in England, a Danish Viking is said to have been flayed by London locals for ransacking a church. However there could have been human hide a thousand years earlier ... the cow hide being nailed on in remembrance of the original event.
Elsewhere:
- In China: Emperors Sun Hao, Fu Sheng and Gao Heng were all known for removing skin from people's faces.
- The Hongwu Emperor flayed many servants, officials and rebels. In 1396 he ordered the flaying of 5,000 women and corrupt officials.
- The Zhengde Emperor flayed six rebels, and Zhang Xianzhong also flayed many people.
Mesoamerica
The Mayans in Central America seem to have flayed prisoners. As evidenced by probable flayed faces from the Copan Stela and other representations at Palenque. Xipe Totec, (Nahuatl: “Our Lord the Flayed One”) was the Mesoamerican god of spring and new vegetation who was venerated by both the Toltecs and Aztecs. As a symbol of the new vegetation, Xipe Totec wore the skin of a human victim—the “new skin” that covered the Earth in the spring. His statues and stone masks always show him wearing a freshly flayed skin.
 |
| Xipe Totec Depicted Holding A Bloody Weapon And Wearing Flayed Human Skin As A Suit |
In fact every era to date has reports of this torture. Allegations that Nazi Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie partly flayed a French Resistance fighter during his time at Lyon, 1942-44.
..... but more recently
Mexican cartel members 'flayed a boy's face off and gouged his eyes out' after the disappearance of 43 Mexican students in 2014. 113 people have been arrested, including 44 police officers in the hunt for the 43 missing students after they were abducted by corrupt police, and handed over to the Guerreros Unidos crime syndicate. Julio César Mondragón, was found dead the next morning with his eyes gouged out, and the skin flayed from his face, leaving only a bare skull ... all but two (another body was found later), of the rest disappeared, presumed dead.
In June 2016 the Taliban in Afghanistan captured 21-year-old labourer Fazl Ahmad after they accused one of Ahmad's distant relatives of killing an ex-Taliban commander in December 2015. They cut out his eyes, skinned him alive, and then threw him from a 10-storey cliff.
Barbarism never seems to go away ... each era seems doomed to relive the horrors off earlier times.
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