Monday, 29 September 2008

Slow slicing - a form of torture and execution originating from Imperial China


Slow slicing (Traditional Chinese: 凌遲, Simplified Chinese: 凌迟, Pinyin: língchí, alternately transliterated Ling Chi or Leng T'che), also translated as the slow process, the lingering death, or death by a thousand cuts, was a form of execution used in China from roughly AD 900 to its abolition in 1905. In this form of execution, the condemned person was killed by using a knife to methodically remove portions of the body over an extended period of time. The term língchí derives from a classical description of ascending a mountain slowly.