List of methods of capital punishment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Methods of execution used to carry out capital punishment have varied over time, and include:
- Asphyxiation (or strangulation), such as by Garrotte
- Blood eagle (possibly a myth)
- Boiling to death
- Burning, especially for religious heretics and witches on the stake
- Brazen bull
- Breaking on the Wheel
- Burial (alive, also known as the pit)
- Crucifixion
- Crushing by a weight, abruptly or as a slow ordeal - see also animals
- Decapitation, or beheading (as by sword, axe or guillotine)
- Disembowelment
- Dismemberment
- Drawing and quartering (Considered by many to be the most cruel of punishments)
- Drowning
- Electrocution
- Explosives
- Flaying (skinning)
- Garrote
- Gassing
- Hanging
- Impalement
- Lethal injection
- Iron Maiden
- Keelhauling (not always lethal) and walking the plank (if not fictitious)
- People shredder
- Poisoning
- Running the gauntlet
- Sawing
- Scaphism and similar methods mentioned there
- Shooting can be performed either
- by Firing squad
- by a single shooter (such as the neck shot, often performed on a kneeling prisoner, as in the PR China)
- (especially collectively) by cannon or machine gun
- Starvation and Dehydration (sometimes as immurement)
- Stoning
- Various animal-related methods
- Tearing apart by horses, e.g. Ancient China (using five horses) or "quartering," with four horses, as in The Song of Roland
- Attack/devouring by animals, such as dogs or wolves, as in Ancient Rome and the Biblical lion's den; by rodents (such as rats); by carnivorous fish (such as piranhas or sharks); by crabs or by insects (such as ants)
- Poisonous stings from scorpions and bites by snakes, spiders, etc.
- Crushing by elephant or trampling by a herd or by horsemen, as practiced by the Mongolian hordes
- Snake pit
