Flaying

There are also records of people flayed after death, generally as a means of debasing the corpse of a prominent enemy or criminal, sometimes related to religious beliefs (e.g., to deny an afterlife); sometimes the skin is used, again for deterrence, esoteric/ritualistic purposes, etc.

Ernst G. Jung, in his Kleine Kulturgeschichte der Haut ("A short cultural history of the skin"), provides an essay in which he outlines the Neo-Assyrian tradition of flaying human beings.

The carvings show that the actual flaying process might begin at various places on the body, such as at the crus (lower leg), the thighs, or the buttocks.

[citation needed] The Rassam cylinder in the British Museum describes this: Their corpses they hung on stakes, they took off their skins and covered the city wall with them.

A similar mode of execution was used as late as the early 18th century in France; one such episode is graphically recounted in the opening chapter of Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish (1979).

[4] At St Michael & All Angels Church in Copford in Essex, England, it is claimed that human skin was found attached to an old door, though evidence seems elusive.

Michelangelo 's The Last Judgment - St Bartholomew holding the knife of his martyrdom and his flayed skin; it is conjectured that Michelangelo included a self-portrait depicting himself as St Bartholomew after he had been flayed alive.
Assyrians flaying their prisoners alive
Shield showing three flaying knives, symbol of Bartholomew the Apostle
Apollo flaying Marsyas by Antonio Corradini (1658–1752), Victoria and Albert Museum , London
The Flaying of Marsyas after challenging Apollo . Painting by Titian .
The Judgement of Cambyses , part 2, half of a diptych painted by Gerard David in 1498.
Marco Antonio Bragadin , Venetian commander of Famagusta flayed alive by the Turks after a year's defense of the city in 1571