One of the things that throw scholars off...

 

... is the idea that impalement as a death penalty invariably ends with an immediate, or at least a quick, death.  Gunnar Samuelsson and John Granger Cook both hold this conviction. Yet sketches from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries show that this was not so!

There was a way that the Turks -- and Vlad Țepeș (sometimes) -- did it; by transfixing the person through the length of his body from the rectum and out the back below one of the shoulders.  The Western Europeans of the time thought it was a disgusting and exceedingly vile combination of the utmost cruelty and "unnatural" "sex."



Scene of Barbaric Slavery.



Luyken Straf empaleren Egypten
Note one of the impalees is smoking a pipe!

Luyken Straf van het empaleren en Egypte.
Earlier version, same as above but the scenery is different.

Crucifixion d'un Chretien a Alger.

Crucifixion d'un Chretien a Alger - Detail.
Notice he's already been impaled ... and he's still alive!

Okay, this one above might have been penetrated between the spine and the skin, but the crookedness introduced into his body suggests otherwise:  if so, the stake would have to be routed next to the spine behind the descending aorta and the vena cava without nicking either vessel or piercing a vital organ. Not bloody likely, in my opinion. 

Impaled on a stake in Ceylon.
This man was obviously dead.


Scenes des supplices Asiatiques.

Impalement scene in 16th Century Russia.
The impale on the right is apparently smiling! :^O

Scenes des supplices.

Scenes des supplices - detail.
Note one of the impales is obviously alive by the positioning of his legs.


So you can see, if you impale someone with care, the victim will be transfixed to suffer extreme torture for a long, slow, lingering death.

I also found evidence that the ancient Greeks knew this was true, too; and included their knowledge thereof in epigraphs and literature... although very, very rarely.