"The Brazen Bull, sometimes known as the Sicilian Bull is one of the cruelest methods of torture and execution out there. Designed in ancient Greece, solid brass was cast into the shape of a hollow bull, with a door on the side that opened and latched. To begin the execution, the victim was placed inside of the brass bull and a fire was set underneath. The fire was heated until the metal was literally yellow, causing the victim to "roast to death". The bull was designed so that the screams of the victim would come out sounding musical for the enjoyment of the executioner, the inventor of this form of punishment ended up being executed inside of the Bull."I was a little worried about how I was going to create this item, but fortunatly there was a ready made bull in Mudbox that I exported into Maya, although it up my polys I was very glad to have a ready made item, I made the horns a little wider and made a 'hatch' on the belly and made a hollow tube shape underneath it for the fire pit. I placed this item underneath the fake door near the top of my castle, the idea is that prisoners inside would somehow get free, find a door to knowhere and look down, only to see the bull. I wonder about my imagination sometimes :/
"Norwich Castle was founded by William the Conqueror some time between 1066 and 1075. It originally took the form of a motte and bailey. Early in 1067, William the Conqueror embarked on a campaign to subjugate East Anglia, and according to military historian R. Allen Brown it was probably around this time that Norwich Castle was founded. The castle is first mentioned in 1075 when Ralph de Gael, Earl of Norfolk, rebelled against William the Conqueror and Norwich was held by his men. A siege was undertaken, but ended when the garrison secured promises that they would not be harmed.
Norwich is one of 48 castles mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086. Building a castle in a pre-existing settlement could require demolishing properties on the site. At Norwich, estimates vary that between 17 and 113 houses occupied the site of the castle. Excavations in the late 1970s discovered that the castle bailey was built over a Saxon cemetery. Historian Robert Liddiard remarks that "to glance at the urban landscape of Norwich, Durham or Lincoln is to be forcibly reminded of the impact of the Norman invasion". Until the construction of Orford Castle in the mid-12th century under Henry II, Norwich was the only major royal castle in East Anglia.
The stone keep, which still stands today, was probably built between 1095 and 1110. In about the year 1100, the motte was made higher and the surrounding ditch deepened. During the Revolt of 1173–1174, in which Henry II's sons rebelled against him and started a civil war, Norwich Castle was put in a state of readiness. Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk was one of the more powerful earls who joined the revolt against Henry. With 318 Flemish soldiers that landed in England in May 1174, and 500 of his own men, Bigod advanced on Norwich Castle. They captured the castle and took fourteen prisoners who were held for ransom. When peace was restored later that year, Norwich was returned to royal control.
The castle was used as a gaol from 1220, with additional buildings constructed on the top of the motte next to the keep. These buildings were demolished and rebuilt between 1789 and 1793 by Sir John Soane, and more alterations were made in 1820. The use of the castle as a gaol ended in 1887, when it was bought by the city of Norwich to be used as a museum. The conversion was undertaken by Edward Boardman, and the museum opened in 1895.
The forebuilding attached to the keep was pulled down in 1825. Although the keep remains, its outer shell has been repaired repeatedly, most recently in 1835–9 by Anthony Salvin, with James Watson as mason using Bath stone. None of the inner or outer bailey buildings survive, and the original Norman bridge over the inner ditch was replaced in about the year 1825. During the renovation, the keep was completely refaced based faithfully on the original ornamentation.
G. T. Clark, a 19th-century antiquary and engineer, described Norwich's great tower as "the most highly ornamented keep in England". It was faced with Caen stone over a flint core. The keep is some 95 ft (29 m) by 90 ft (27 m) and 70 ft (21 m) high, and is of the hall-keep type, entered at first floor level through an external structure called the Bigod Tower. The exterior is decorated with blank arcading. Castle Rising is the only other comparable keep in this respect. Internally, the keep has been gutted so that nothing remains of its medieval layout. The uncertainty surrounding the keep's arrangement has led to scholarly debate. What is agreed on is that it had a complex domestic arrangement, with a kitchen, chapel, a two-storey high hall, and 16 latrines."
"The Winchester Mystery House is a mansion in San Jose, California which was once the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester. The property and mansion have been claimed to be haunted including by Winchester herself since construction commenced in 1884. Under Winchester's day-to-day guidance, its "from-the-ground-up" construction proceeded around the clock, without interruption, until her death on September 5, 1922, at which time work immediately ceased. The cost for such constant building has been estimated at about US $5.5 million (equivalent to over $75 million in 2012).
A Boston Medium told Winchester, supposedly by way of her late husband, that she had to leave her home in New Haven and travel West, where she must continuously build a home for herself and the spirits of people who had fallen victim to Winchester rifles. Winchester left her New Haven home and headed for California. In 1884 she purchased an unfinished farmhouse in Santa Clara Valley, and began building her mansion. Carpenters were hired and worked on the house day and night until it became a seven story mansion.
She believed her only chance of a normal life was to build a house, and keep building it. If the house was never finished, no ghost could settle into it. The house contains many features that were utilized to trap or confuse spirits. There are doors that are small or lead nowhere and windows that look into other parts of the house. The mansion may be huge but there are only two mirrors in the whole place. This is because Sarah believed that ghosts were afraid of their own reflection.
Winchester inherited more than $20.5 million upon her husband's death. She also received nearly fifty percent ownership of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, giving her an income of roughly $1,000 per day, equivalent to about $30,000 a day in 2012. These inheritances gave her a tremendous amount of wealth to fund the ongoing construction.
Though it is possible Sarah Winchester was simply seeking a change of location and a hobby during her lengthy depression, other sources claim that while consulting The Boston Medium, Winchester came to believe her family and fortune were haunted by the ghosts of people who had fallen victim to Winchester rifles, and that only by moving West and continuously building them a house could she appease these spirits. Located at 525 South Winchester Blvd. in San Jose, California, the Queen Anne Style Victorian mansion is renowned for its size and utter lack of any master building plan."
