A favorite of Game of Thrones’ Ramsay Bolton, skinning actually dates back to the Middle Ages depicted in the series and the novels on which it is based. Many ancient cultures practiced the art of skinning animals alive, including the Assyrians and the Popoloks, but examples of human skinning also exist in China during the Ming Dynasty and in Europe in the 16th century.

And no matter where or when it was practiced, skinning remains one of the most disturbing forms of torture and execution ever invented. Stone carvings from the time of ancient Assyria—circa 800 BCE—show warriors systematically ripping the skin off the bodies of prisoners, making it one of the earliest cultures to partake in this brutal torture.

According to National Geographic, the Assyrians were one of the oldest empires in the world. They populated the regions of present-day Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Syria, and Turkey and expanded their empire by gradually conquering enemy cities and using newly developed warfare techniques and iron weapons.

They were ruthless and military, so it was natural that they would torture their prisoners.

One account of the Assyrian flaying comes from a report by Erika Belibtreu of the Biblical Archaeological Society, in which the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II punished members of a city who opposed him rather than submit immediately. The report of his punishment states: “I flayed all the nobles who had rebelled against me [and] laid their skins on the mound [of corpses]; some I laid on the pyre, others I placed on stakes on the pyre… Many I flayed in the middle of my field [and] hung their skins on the walls.”

The Assyrians probably flayed their enemies to intimidate others—as a warning of what would happen to them if they did not submit. There are, however, examples throughout history of rulers flaying their own people to leave their mark. The Ming Dynasty ruled China for nearly 300 years, between 1368 and 1644. Although the Ming Dynasty is often hailed as a time of beauty and prosperity, as the Daily Mail reported, it also had a dark side.

Emperor Taizu, who ruled during the Hongwu period, was particularly cruel. He had once commanded the army that drove the Mongol invaders out of China in 1386 and named the dynasty “Ming,” a Mongolian word meaning “brilliant.” He also made it a capital offense to criticize him, and when he discovered that his prime minister was being accused of plotting against him, he killed all of the man’s relatives, friends, and associates—about 40,000 people in total.

Some of these people were skinned and their flesh nailed to a wall to show others that Emperor Taizu would not tolerate anyone challenging his authority. While skinning was a particularly cruel and brutal act, it was not just a method used by ruthless tyrants. In some cultures, skinning people was part of sacrificial rituals.

Before the Aztecs, the area of ​​present-day Mexico was inhabited by a people known as the Popoloca, who, among other things, worshiped a god named Xipe Totec. Xipe Totec means “our lord of the flayed.” The ancient priests of Xipe Totec ritually sacrificed their victims in a ceremony called Tlacaxipehualiztli – “wearing the skin of the flayed.”

The ritual lasted 40 days in the spring: a selected Popoloca was dressed as a Xіpe Toteс, wearing bright colors and jewelry, and was ritually sacrificed along with prisoners of war in order to obtain a rich harvest. The sacrifice took place on two circular altars. In one of them, the chosen member of the Popoloca tribe was killed in a gladiatorial-style fight. On the other, they were flayed. The priests then carried the flayed skin and placed it in two holes in front of the altars.

The rituals were depicted in artworks found in Porolocha and Aztec temples—an artistic trend that did not stop in Mesoamerica. Stripping continued to play an important role in cultures around the world until the 16th century, when several famous artworks depicting the stripping of people appeared.

A work called The Flaying of Marsyas , according to the Met’s estimates, was created around 1570 by an Italian artist named Titian. It depicts Ovid’s story of the satyr Marsyas, who lost a music contest to Apollo and was punished by having his skin flayed.

Another painting, The Flaying of Saint Bartholomew , shows the saint—one of Jesus’ twelve disciples—being martyred and flayed alive after converting Polymus, king of Armenia, to Christianity.

Stories of skinning can also be found in folklore and fairy tales around the world, such as those collected by the Marin Theatre Company. The Irish legend of the Selkies, for example, tells of shapeshifting creatures that can shed their skins and move about on land like humans. One story tells of a hunter who steals a selkie’s skin and forces the naked, human-like creature to marry him until she regains her skin and flees into the sea.

An old Italian fairy tale, “The Old Skinned Woman,” is a little more mundane and tells the story of two old unmarried sisters who live in the forest. One of the sisters meets some fairies and makes them laugh—and as a reward, they make her young and beautiful again. When the younger sister inevitably marries the king, the older sister becomes jealous. The bride tells her older sister that all she needs to do is change her skin to become young again. The older sister goes to a barber and asks him to skin her—and she dies of blood loss.

In Iceland, there are legends about Lappish pants, also known as “corpse pants.” These pants, the stories say, make the wearer rich—but getting them is a bit tricky. The first step is to ask someone to give you their skin before they die. Once they’re dead, you have to dig up their corpses, skin their flesh from the waist down, and place a piece of paper with a magic seal on it in the “pocket”—or in other words, the scrotum—along with a coin stolen from a widow.

But once the gruesome work is done, the magical scrotum is still filled with money. And then, of course, there are the Dineh and Navajo legends of the Skinwalker, who can take the form of other people and animals.

Clearly, this is a concept of skinning that has troubled people of every culture and at every time in human history—and for good reason.

Thankfully, skinning is now considered a violation of human rights and is illegal in every country.