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[Method]: Hanging
[Description]: One of the most common methods of execution, still in use in many countries, usually with a calculated drop to cause neck fracture and instant loss of consciousness. Notably used by India, Japan, Singapore, Pakistan and Iran.
(Current methods) -
[Method]: Shooting
[Description]: Also a very common method. Can be applied:By a single shot (such as a shot to the back of a head, as in China, Belarus and by various means in Russia before Russia abolished capital punishment. Similar process in Taiwan in which prisoners are sedated beforehand.)
By a single machine gun, as previously practiced in Thailand and elsewhere.
By firing squad (as in Indonesia).
By excessively powerful weaponry such as anti-aircraft guns, according to various media sources (CNN, Fox News, The Independent, etc.), practiced in North Korea.
(Current methods) -
[Method]: Lethal injection
[Description]: First used in the United States in 1982, lethal injection has been used by five other countries and regions since then, which are China, Taiwan, Thailand, Guatemala, and Vietnam.
(Current methods) -
[Method]: Electrocution
[Description]: Only the United States and the Philippines have ever used this method. Now legal in some U.S. states only to replace injection at the request of the prisoner or if injection is impractical.
(Current methods) -
[Method]: Gas inhalation
[Description]: Only the United States and Lithuania have ever used this as a capital punishment method. Now legal in some U.S. states only to replace injection at the request of the prisoner or if injection is impractical.
(Current methods) -
[Method]: Beheading
[Description]: Has been used at various points in history in many countries. One of the most famous forms is execution by guillotine. Now used only in Saudi Arabia with a sword.
(Current methods) -
[Method]: Animals
[Description]: Crushing by elephant.
Devouring by animals, as in damnatio ad bestias (i.e., as in the cliché, "being thrown to the lions"), as well as by alligators, crocodiles, piranhas and sharks.
Bites by snakes (e.g. the "Snake pit" of Germanic legend).[dubious – discuss]
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), variant with tearing apart by camels was sometimes used in the Middle East.
Trampling by horses (example: Al-Musta'sim, the last Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad).
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Back-breaking
[Description]: A Mongolian method of execution that avoided the spilling of blood on the ground (example: the Mongolian leader Jamukha was probably executed this way in 1206).
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Blowing from a gun
[Description]: Tied to the mouth of a cannon, which is then fired.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Blood Eagle
[Description]: Cutting the skin of the victim by the spine, breaking the ribs so they resembled blood-stained wings, and pulling the lungs out through the wounds in the victim's back. Possibly used by the Vikings.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Boiling to death
[Description]: This penalty was carried out using a large cauldron filled with water, oil, tar, tallow, or even molten lead.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Brazen bull
[Description]: Pushed inside an iron bull statue and then cooked alive after a fire is lit under it.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Breaking wheel
[Description]: Also known as the Catherine wheel, after a saint who was allegedly sentenced to be executed by this method.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Buried alive
[Description]: Traditional punishment for Vestal virgins who had broken their vows.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Burning
[Description]: Most infamous as a method of execution for heretics and witches. A slower method of applying single pieces of burning wood was used by Native Americans in torturing their captives to death.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Crucifixion
[Description]: Roping or nailing to a wooden cross or similar apparatus (such as a tree) and allowing to perish.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Crushing
[Description]: By a weight, abruptly or as a slow ordeal. Giles Corey was killed this way.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Disembowelment
[Description]: Often employed as a preliminary stage to the actual execution, e.g. by beheading; an integral part of seppuku (harakiri), which was sometimes used as a form of capital punishment.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Dismemberment
[Description]: Being drawn and quartered sometimes resulted in dismemberment. Note: this has been used in combination, such as hanged, drawn and quartered.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Drowning
[Description]: Execution by drowning, as a method of execution, is attested very early in history, for a large variety of cultures, and as the method of execution for many types of offences.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Drawing and quartering
[Description]: English method of executing those found guilty of high treason.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Falling
[Description]: The victim is thrown off a height or into a hollow (example: the Barathron in Athens, into which the Athenian generals condemned for their part in the battle of Arginusae were cast). In Argentina during the Dirty War, those secretly abducted were later drugged and thrown from an airplane into the ocean.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Flaying
[Description]: The skin is removed from the body.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Garrote
[Description]: Used most commonly in Spain and in former Spanish colonies (e.g. the Philippines), used to strangle or choke someone.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Gibbeting
[Description]: The act of gibbeting refers to the use of a gallows-type structure from which the victim was usually placed within a cage which is then hung in a public location and the victim left to die to deter other existing or potential criminals.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Immurement
[Description]: The confinement of a person by walling off any exits; since they were usually kept alive through an opening, this was more a form of imprisonment for life than of capital punishment (example: the countess Elisabeth Báthory, who lived for four more years after having been immured).
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Impalement
[Description]: The penetration of a human by an object such as a stake, pole, spear, or hook, often by complete or partial perforation of the torso.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Keelhauling
[Description]: European maritime punishment.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Molten or Heated Metal
[Description]: Supposedly Marcus Licinius Crassus and Pavlo Pavliuk were killed in this fashion. The execution method is associated with those who were thirsty for wealth by pouring down the neck or for those who wished to be king by pouring metal on the head.Alternately, a heated crown and scepter can be placed on the head to make the victim to appear as a parody of a King. In Ukrainian this is called death by slapstick
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Poena cullei
[Description]: Documented used during the Roman empire. The condemned is stuffed into a sack together with a number of animals and thrown into a body of water.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Poisoning
[Description]: Before modern times, sayak (사약, 賜藥) was the method of capital punishment of nobles (yangban) and members of the royal family during the Joseon Dynasty in Korea due to the Confucianist belief that one may kill a seonbi but may not insult him (사가살불가욕, 士可殺不可辱). Poisoning by drinking an infusion of hemlock was used as a method of execution in ancient Greece.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Pendulum
[Description]: A type of machine with an axe head for a weight that slices closer to the victim's torso over time. (Of disputed historicity.)
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Sawing
[Description]: (Of disputed historicity.)
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Scaphism
[Description]: An Ancient Persian method of execution in which the condemned was placed in between two boats, force fed a mixture of honey and milk, and left floating in a stagnant pond. The victim would then suffer from severe diarrhea, which would attract insects that would burrow, nest, and feed on the victim. The victim would eventually die from septic shock.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Slow slicing
[Description]: Methodically removing portions of the body over an extended period of time, typically with a knife, eventually resulting in death. Sometimes known as "death by a thousand cuts."
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Smothering (Asphyxia)
[Description]: Suffocation in ash.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Starvation / Dehydration
[Description]: Immurement.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Stoning
[Description]: The condemned is pummeled by stones thrown by a group of people with the totality of the injuries suffered leading to eventual death.
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Strangulation
[Description]:
(Ancient methods) -
[Method]: Suffocation
[Description]: Carbon monoxide poisoning by burning coal in a sealed room.
(Ancient methods)
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