Scaphism was a gruesome method of torture and execution believed to have been used by the Ancient Persians. It involved tying a person between two boats, covering them in honey, setting them adrift, and allowing bugs and rats to devour them (although some historians believe this may have been a fabrication by the Greeks to vilify the Persians). The term “scaphism” originates from the Ancient Greek word skaphe, meaning “boat”; the suffix -ism indicates a state and is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root mos. Skaphe literally translates to “thing cut out” and evolved from the PIE word skep, which means “cut”. This root also gives rise to the term scaphoid, describing boat-shaped carpal bones in the wrist, and the word bathyscape, referring to a deep-sea submarine (bathys meaning “deep” in Ancient Greek).
