The Bull That Turned Screams Into Bellows

Tubes built into its bronze head disguised a burning man's screams as the roar of an animal.

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In ancient Greece there was an execution device known as the Brazen Bull, a hollow statue made entirely of bronze shaped like a life-sized bull, and the condemned person was locked inside through a small door in the side while a fire was lit beneath it, and as the metal slowly heated the person inside would begin to burn alive, but the design included a system of tubes and chambers built into the head of the bull so that the screams of the victim were transformed into sounds resembling the bellowing of an animal, and witnesses would hear what sounded like a roaring bull while the person inside was dying, and according to later accounts the man who designed the device was eventually executed inside it himself.

Interesting Fact

The Brazen Bull was said to have been created for the tyrant Phalaris of Akragas in ancient Sicily. According to legend, he tested it on the inventor who designed it — and then had him thrown from a cliff.

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