- List of methods of capital punishment
-
Quartering
This is a list of methods of capital punishment.
Method Description Animals - Crushing by elephant[1]
- Devouring by:
- Alligators, crocodiles, or sharks[dubious ]
- Animals such as dogs or wolves, as in Ancient Rome and the Biblical lion's den
- Damnatio ad bestias (i.e., as in the cliché, "being thrown to the lions")
- Insects, such as ants[dubious ]
- Rodents, such as rats[dubious ]
- Stings from scorpions and bites by snakes, spiders, etc.
- Snake pit
- Tearing apart by horses (e.g., in medieval Europe and Imperial China, with four horses; or "quartering", with four horses, as in The Song of Roland and Child Owlet)
- Trampling by horses (example: Al-Musta'sim, the last Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad)
Boiling to death This penalty was carried out using a large cauldron filled with water, oil, tar, tallow, or even molten lead. Breaking back A Mongolian method of execution that avoided the spilling of blood on the ground[2] Breaking wheel Also known as the Catherine wheel Buried alive Burning Supposed to have been popular for executing for religious heretics and witches, Cooking Brazen Bull Crucifixion Roping or nailing to a wooden cross or similar apparatus (such as a tree) and allowing to perish. Crushing By a weight, abruptly or as a slow ordeal. Decapitation Also known as beheading. One of the most famous execution methods is execution by guillotine. Disembowelment Dismemberment Being drawn and quartered sometimes resulted in dismemberment. Drawing and quartering Electrocution The electric chair Falling Flaying The skin is removed from the body. Garrote Gas Death by asphyxiation or poison gas in a sealed chamber Hanging Immurement Being left to die of starvation or dehydration. Impalement Keelhauling European maritime punishment. Lethal injection Pendulum[3] A type of machine with an axe head for a weight that slices closer to the victim's torso over time Poisoning Lethal injection is the modern form of poisoning and is used in some countries. Sawing Scaphism Shooting - By cannon (see Blowing from a gun)
- By firing squad
- By a single shot (such as the neck shot, often performed on a kneeling prisoner, as in China)
Slow slicing Stabbing Starvation / Dehydration Immurement Stoning Strangulation References
- ^ This Won't Hurt a Bit: A Painlessly Short (and Incomplete) Evolution of Execution.
- ^ Chingis Khan
- ^ R.D. Melville (1905), "The Use and Forms of Judicial Torture in England and Scotland," The Scottish Historical Review, vol. 2, p. 228; Geoffrey Abbott (2006) Execution: the guillotine, the Pendulum, the Thousand Cuts, the Spanish Donkey, and 66 Other Ways of Putting Someone to Death, MacMillan, ISBN 0312352220, p. 213. Both refer to the use of the pendulum (pendola)by inquisitorial tribunals. Melville, however, refers only to its use as a torture method, while Abbott suggests that the device was purposely allowed to kill the victim if he refused to confess.
External links
Categories:- Crime-related lists
- Execution methods
- Law lists
- Death-related lists
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