Greg, (with apologies for upcoming thread drift): what's with crucifixion, especially?

I haven't heard of that in Iran, but people have been stoned within the past few years. Not in the environs of Tehran, but in territory where the writ of central government was weaker and extremist interpretations of Sharia law were applied.

Two or three years ago I posted links on Mudcat that went to illicit video footage of stonings, but I'm not sure if the links are still active. Fortunately for my constitution the image quality was poor, but the scenes were unmistakable, and there was detailed supporting narrative.

Men convicted to this fate were buried up to their waists in sand, women up to their necks. The stoners - apparently the general public - were required to use ammo delivered by lorry, the stones having to be large enough to cause significant injury, but not so large that any two would kill. Anyone who escaped was entitled to go free, but there was a case within the past five years of a woman escaping (with the loss of one eye) who was run to ground and killed - possibly in mercy.

I say all this in the past tense, because I've neither seen nor heard of anything like this for two or three years.

Not so long since, thugs nailed a man to a fence at Dunmurry on the outskirts of Belfast, using six-inch nails through his hands. Some police officers thought it was a mimicking of crucifixion, but the man was not injured any other way, not suspended by the nails, and he did not die. From memory, his offence was persistent joy-riding.

I'm fairly sure the Spanish inquisition sometimes nailed heretics, crucifixion-style, to doors - the attraction to the tormenters being that jolting the doors was a simple way to up the ante. (I'm only "fairly sure" because right now I can't remember my source! I do remember I thought it was reliable, but I'll have to track it down.)

Crucifixion seems to stir deeper emotions than many other torments (eg the rack) entirely because of its iconographic place in Christianity. But many thousands of of others have similarly perished on crosses.

There have of course been many fates equally or more horrific. Many of the hundreds of thousands of people sacrificed to the god Huehueteotl by Tenochca Aztecs were thrown on fires, then dragged out by hooks while still alive to have their hearts torn out and burnt.

Hence my slight irritation that crucifixion has taken a seemingly disproportionate hold in our imaginations (mine included).