"Scaphism: The Ancient Persian Torture Method That Killed Victims With Milk And Honey." Cultura Colectiva.
"How long can you go without food?" Slate. "Killer Elephants: When Pachyderms Carried Out Capital Punishment." All That's Interesting. "Photos Show Jaguar 'Scarface' Taking Down Dangerous Prey." NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC. Section 30.3, Food Intake and Starvation Induce Metabolic Changes. Berg, Jeremy, Tymoczko, John and Stryer, Lubert."Can you really be scared to death?" American Heart Association. Which, considering the gruesome nature of the process, still seems like cold comfort. (They did feed the victim some liquor however, the day of the ritual, presumably to arm them a little against the weather and pain.) Archaeologists aren't too sure how painful a death the victims encountered many of them do have skull fractures, which leads them to believe if they were not killed by the blow, they were at least knocked out before they died of exposure. Literally, actually - the ritual would take place high on an Andes summit. Usually involving a chief's child, human sacrifice was a pretty cold affair. In this case, we're talking about the Incan tradition of human sacrifice. Unfair, man.Īnd with that we come to human sacrifice, another Worst Way To Die. So imagine this: You're not only going to die, but you have to - believe? pretend? - that you're being ritualistically killed because you're a perfectly beautiful and physically unblemished specimen.