Capital punishment

[[Image:Death Penalty World Map.png|thumb|300px|Death Penalty World Map

Methods of execution

Methods of execution have varied over time, and include:

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• 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
• Death by a thousand cuts
• Decapitation, or beheading (as by sword, axe or guillotine)
• Disembowelment
• Dismemberment
• Disruption (a form of dismemberment)
• Drawing and quartering (Considered by many to be the most "cruel" of punishments)
• Drowning
• Electrocution, as by electric chair
• Explosives
• Exsanguination
• Flaying = skinning
• Forced suicide, such as the poisoned cup
• Fustuarium - see also for not always lethal successors
• Gassing
• Hanging
• Impalement
• Iron Maiden
• Keelhauling (not always lethal) and walking the plank (if not mythical)
• Pressing (also used for witches)
• Poisoning, as by Lethal injection - see also animals and forces suicide
• 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 present PR China i significant numbers)
• (especially collectively) by canon or machine gun
• Starvation - dehydration is slower, so even crueler
• Stoning = lapidation
• Strangling with silk robe = Ottoman style capital punishment for royal family members (whose blood must not be shed)
• Various animal-related methods
• Tearing apart by horses, e.g. Ancient China (using five horses) or "quartering," with four horses, and 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 sharks), by crabs or by insects (such as ants)
• poisonous bites from scorpions, snakes, spiders etcetera
• Crushing by elephant or trampling by a herd or by horsemen, as practices by the Mongolian hordes