iron maiden
A torture/execution device from Medieval Germany, which consists of an iron coffin lined with spikes on the inside of the doors. The doors were closed SLOWLY so that the accused criminal would suffer maximum pain and anguish, sometimes for days, before finally dying of the resulting puncture wounds and suffocation.
Legend has it that a German coin counterfeiter was sentenced to the Iron Maiden. For the last two days of his life, the forger cried in vain while the spikes went through his body.
By AYB