Impalement, as a method of torture and execution, is the penetration of a human by an object such as a stake, pole, spear, or hook, often by the complete or partial perforation of the torso.It was particularly used in response to "crimes against the state" and regarded across a number of cultures as a very harsh form of capital punishment and recorded in myth and art.

Bactria (/ ˈ b æ k t r i ə /; Bactrian: βαχλο, Bakhlo), or Bactriana, was an ancient region in Central Asia.Bactria proper was north of the Hindu Kush mountain range and south of the Oxus river (modern Amu Darya), covering Afghanistan.More broadly, Bactria was the area which was located north of the Hindu Kush, west of the Pamirs and south of the Tian Shan, covering modern-day ...

The Achaemenid Persian empire was the largest that the ancient world had seen, extending from Anatolia and Egypt across western Asia to northern India and Central Asia. Its formation began in 550 B.C., when King Astyages of Media, who dominated much of Iran and eastern Anatolia (Turkey), was defeated by his southern neighbor Cyrus II (“the ...