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The Judas Cradle was a torture device where the victim would be placed on top of a wooden pyramid with the triangular end inserted in the victim's anus or vagina. Arms and feet were tied or weighted in order to ensure maximum pain as gravity slowly pulled the victim downward. More often than not, the Judas Cradle was used to extract confessions or specific information from victims, so the addition of weights could increase the horror. Depending on the rate of the pyramid-sitter's progress, this torture could last anywhere from a few hours to a full day. While the torture was not usually intended to be fatal, it often was. Since the device was never cleaned, survivors experienced a high incidence of infection, which was effectively a death sentence in the centuries before antibiotics.