Throughout history, immurement, also known as live entombment, was a cruel form of punishment in which a person was enclosed in a tight confinement without an exit. A person could, for example, be stuffed inside a locked coffin or a wooden box. Or, perhaps, brick walls are constructed around them from which they cannot escape.
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One famous example of this vile practice comes from Edgar Allen Poe's short story, “The Cask of Amontillado,” which tells the story of a man recounting to a friend how he had his revenge on a former acquaintance by luring him into the catacombs with the promise of a highly prized cask of wine. The story's narrator then describes how he chained his enemy to the wall and proceeded to seal him into his tomb with brick and mortar, leaving him to die a miserable death within him:
“I summarized the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.”
And although Poe's 1846 work is indeed one of fiction, the process of immurement is frighteningly real, with a history as dark, if not darker, than Poe's story.
The Cruel History Of Immurement As Capital Punishment
The history of immurement dates back centuries with examples of the practice being found on almost every continent.
Immurement was typically used as a form of capital punishment, in which a slow death was the justice handed down for a given crime. The second use of immurement, just as horrid and cruel and perhaps even more disturbing, was for human sacrifice — and it was believed that this practice would bring good fortune to those performing the sacrifice.