Spooktober: It's A Whole Ordeal - Dirt 111

Sure, maybe you've heard of the River Ordeal, or trial by fire, but have you heard of Trial by Bean? How about the Ordeal of the Turf? In this Spooktober installment, Amber walks Anna through the ways that those accused of crimes have proven their innocence (or not!) throughout history and all over the world.

Links

• Why the trial by ordeal was actually an effective test of guilt (Aeon.com)

• The Laws of King Athelstan 924-939 A.D. (Internet History Sourcebooks)

• Trial by ordeal: When fire and water determined guilt (BBC News)

• River Ordeal—Trial by Water—Swimming of Witches: Procedures of Ordeal in Witch Trials (Witchcraft Mythologies and Persecutions, via Academia.edu)

• The Law of Hammurabi and Its Audience (Yale Journal of Law & The Humanities)

• The Code of Hammurabi (Yale University Avalon Project)

• Poisonous plants: Calabar beans were used to determine guilt in prehistoric trials. (Slate.com)

• The State and Pre-Colonial Demographic History: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Madagascar (The Journal of African History)

• Cerbera manghas (Wikipedia)

• Ātash (Encyclopedia Iranica)

• Ordeal in Iceland (Scandinavian Studies)

• Common superstition, swearing of oath and ordeal of Koren (The Sangai Express)

• Sassywood (Journal of Comparative Economics)

• Historical Techniques of Lie Detection (European Journal of Psychology)

• Bisha’a (Wikipedia)

• Ordeal of the bitter water (Wikipedia)

Contact

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