Decapitation#metaphoric

The word decapitation has its roots in the Late Latin word {{lang|la|decapitare}}. The meaning of the word {{lang|la|decapitare}} can be discerned from its morphemes {{lang|la|de-}} (down, from) + {{lang|la|capit-}} (head).{{cite book|title=Studies in Etymology|last2=Fleischer |first2=Rita |publisher=Focus |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-58510-012-5 |edition=Second |last1=Dunmore |first1=Charles}} The past participle of {{lang|la|decapitare}} is {{lang|la|decapitatus}}{{cite web |url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=decapitation |title=Decapitation |website=Online Etymology Dictionary |language=en |access-date=19 July 2017 |archive-date=28 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170728201258/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=decapitation |url-status=live }} which was used to create {{lang|la|decapitatio}}, the noun form of {{lang|la|decapitatus}}, in Medieval Latin, whence the French word {{lang|fr|décapitation}} was produced.

File:Oden vid Mims lik.jpg finding Mímir's beheaded body – an episode of Norse mythology]]

File:Beheading Fac simile of a Miniature on Wood in the Cosmographie Universelle of Munster in folio Basle 1552.png of a miniature on wood in the Cosmographia of Sebastian Münster (1488–1552), Basel, Switzerland, 1552]]

File:Giulio Quaglio the Younger - Obglavljenje sv. Barbare.jpg" by Giulio Quaglio the Younger (1721–1723)]]

File:Thetriumphofdeath - detail.jpg, 1562–1563]]

File:Hinrichtung.jpg (namely Klein Henszlein and his crew) in Hamburg, Germany, 10 September 1573]]

Humans have practiced capital punishment by beheading for millennia. The Narmer Palette (c. 3000 BCE) shows the first known depiction of decapitated corpses. The terms "capital offence", "capital crime", "capital punishment", derive from the Latin {{Lang|la|caput}}, "head", referring to the punishment for serious offences involving the forfeiture of the head; i.e. death by beheading.Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, edited by Noah Porter, published by G & C. Merriam Co., 1913

Some cultures, such as ancient Rome and Greece, regarded decapitation as the most honorable form of death.{{cite book |first1=Cliff |last1=Roberson |first2=Dilip K. |last2=Das |title=An Introduction to Comparative Legal Models of Criminal Justice |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pQLLBQAAQBAJ |page=172 |publisher=CRC Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-4200-6593-0 |access-date=2 August 2020 |archive-date=8 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240608031109/https://books.google.com/books?id=pQLLBQAAQBAJ |url-status=live }} In the Middle Ages, many European nations continued to reserve the method only for nobles and royalty.{{cite journal |last1=Giovénal |first1=Carine |last2=Corbellari |first2=Alain |title=42 {{!}} 2020 Le chief tranché |url=http://journals.openedition.org/babel/11036 |access-date=11 March 2021 |journal=Babel |year=2020 |issue=42 |doi=10.4000/babel.11036 |language=fr |doi-access=free |archive-date=26 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210526131101/https://journals.openedition.org/babel/11036 |url-status=live }} In France, the French Revolution made it the only legal method of execution for all criminals regardless of class, one of the period's many symbolic changes.

Others have regarded beheading as dishonorable and contemptuous, such as the Japanese troops who beheaded prisoners during World War II. In recent times, it has become associated with terrorism.

If a headsman's axe or sword is sharp and his aim is precise, decapitation is quick and thought to be a relatively painless form of death. If the instrument is blunt or the executioner is clumsy, repeated strokes might be required to sever the head, resulting in a prolonged and more painful death. Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex,{{cite book |last=Smollett |first=T. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T-M_AAAAYAAJ&q=robert+devereux+three+strokes&pg=PA488 |title=A Complete History of England, from the Descent of Julius Caesar |volume=4 |location=London |year=1758 |page=488 |access-date=16 October 2020 |archive-date=8 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240608031050/https://books.google.com/books?id=T-M_AAAAYAAJ&q=robert+devereux+three+strokes&pg=PA488#v=onepage&q=robert%20devereux%20three%20strokes&f=false |url-status=live }} and Mary, Queen of Scots{{cite book |last=Cheetham |first=J.K. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w6ogOYZvE2wC&pg=PA161 |title=On the Trail of Mary Queen of Scots |location=Glasgow |date=2000 |page=161 |isbn=978-0-946487-50-9 |access-date=23 March 2016 |archive-date=8 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240608031120/https://books.google.com/books?id=w6ogOYZvE2wC&pg=PA161#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }} required three strikes at their respective executions. The same could be said for the execution of Johann Friedrich Struensee, favorite of the Danish queen Caroline Matilda of Great Britain. Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury, is said to have required up to 10 strokes before decapitation was achieved.{{cite book|title=The Complete Peerage |volume= XII part II |page=393 |title-link=The Complete Peerage}} This particular story may, however, be apocryphal, as highly divergent accounts exist. Historian and philosopher David Hume, for example, relates the following about her death:{{cite book |last=Hume |first=David |author-link=David Hume |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nl0TAAAAQAAJ&q=execution+countess+of+salisbury&pg=PT7 |title=The history of the reign of Henry the eighth |location=London |date=1792 |page=151 |access-date=16 October 2020 |archive-date=8 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240608031047/https://books.google.com/books?id=nl0TAAAAQAAJ&q=execution+countess+of+salisbury&pg=PT7#v=snippet&q=execution%20countess%20of%20salisbury&f=false |url-status=live }}{{blockquote|She refused to lay her head on the block, or submit to a sentence where she had received no trial. She told the executioner, that if he would have her head, he must win it the best way he could: and thus, shaking her venerable grey locks, she ran about the scaffold; and the executioner followed her with his axe, aiming many fruitless blows at her neck before he was able to give the fatal stroke.}}File:CosmasDamianfraangelico.jpg, by Fra Angelico]]

To ensure that the blow would be fatal, executioners' swords usually were blade-heavy two-handed swords. Likewise, if an axe was used, it almost invariably was wielded with both hands.

Decapitation is quickly fatal to humans and most animals. Unconsciousness occurs within seconds without circulating oxygenated blood (brain ischemia).{{cite journal|last=Turner|first=Matthew D.|title=The Most Gentle of Lethal Methods: The Question of Retained Consciousness Following Decapitation.|journal=Cureus|volume=15|issue=1|date=2023|pages=e33830 |doi=10.7759/cureus.33830 |doi-access=free |pmid=36819446 |pmc=9930870 }} Cell death and irreversible brain damage occurs after 3–6 minutes with no oxygen, due to excitotoxicity. Some anecdotes suggest more extended persistence of human consciousness after decapitation,Gabriel Beaurieux, writing in 1905, quoted in {{cite book |last=Kershaw |first=Alister |title=A History of the Guillotine |year=1958 |publisher=John Calder |isbn=978-1-56619-153-1}}, cited by {{cite web |url=http://thechirurgeonsapprentice.com/2012/08/13/losing-ones-head-a-frustrating-search-for-the-truth-about-decapitation/ |title=Losing One's Head: A Frustrating Search for the 'Truth' about Decapitation |work=The Chirurgeon's Apprentice |access-date=8 April 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140409013245/http://thechirurgeonsapprentice.com/2012/08/13/losing-ones-head-a-frustrating-search-for-the-truth-about-decapitation/ |archive-date=9 April 2014 }} but most doctors consider this unlikely and consider such accounts to be misapprehensions of reflexive twitching rather than deliberate movement, since deprivation of oxygen must cause nearly immediate coma and death ("[Consciousness is] probably lost within 2–3 seconds, due to a rapid fall of intracranial perfusion of blood").{{cite journal |last1=Hillman |first1=Harold |date=27 October 1983 |title=An Unnatural Way to Die |journal=New Scientist |pages=276–278 }} Cited in {{cite web |url=http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/10-brain-myths6.htm |title=Top 10 Myths About the Brain |author=Shanna Freeman |work=How Stuff Works |page=5: Your Brain Stays Active After You Get Decapitated |access-date=8 April 2014 |date=17 September 2008 |archive-date=6 April 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140406215054/http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/10-brain-myths6.htm |url-status=live }}

A laboratory study testing for humane methods of euthanasia in awake animals used EEG monitoring to measure the time duration following decapitation for rats to become fully unconscious, unable to perceive distress and pain. It was estimated that this point was reached within 3–4 seconds, correlating closely with results found in other studies on rodents (2.7 seconds, and 3–6 seconds).{{cite journal |last1=van Rijn |first1=Clementina M. |title=Decapitation in Rats: Latency to Unconsciousness and the 'Wave of Death' |journal=PLOS ONE |date=27 January 2011 |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=e16514 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0016514 |pmid=21304584 |pmc=3029360 |bibcode=2011PLoSO...616514R |doi-access=free }}{{cite journal |last1=Derr |first1=Robert F. |title=Pain perception in decapitated rat brain |journal=Life Sciences |date=29 August 1991 |volume=49 |issue=19 |pages=1399–1402 |doi=10.1016/0024-3205(91)90391-n|pmid=1943446 }}{{cite journal |last1=Holson |first1=R. Robert |title=Euthanasia by decapitation: Evidence that this technique produces prompt, painless unconsciousness in laboratory rodents |journal=Neurotoxicology and Teratology |date=6 January 1992 |volume=14 |issue=4 |pages=253–257 |doi=10.1016/0892-0362(92)90004-t|pmid=1522830 |bibcode=1992NTxT...14..253H }} The same study also suggested that the massive wave which can be recorded by EEG monitoring approximately one minute after decapitation ultimately reflects brain death. Other studies indicate that electrical activity in the brain has been demonstrated to persist for 13 to 14 seconds following decapitation (although it is disputed as to whether such activity implies that pain is perceived),{{cite journal |last1=Hawkins |first1=Penny |title=A Good Death? Report of the Second Newcastle Meeting on Laboratory Animal Euthanasia |journal=Animals |date=23 August 2016 |volume=6 |issue=50 |page=50 |pmc=5035945 |pmid=27563926 |doi=10.3390/ani6090050 |doi-access=free }} and a 2010 study reported that decapitation of rats generated responses in EEG indices over a period of 10 seconds that have been linked to nociception across a number of different species of animals, including rats.{{cite journal |last1=Kongara |first1=Kavitha |s2cid=24006386 |title=Electroencephalographic evaluation of decapitation of the anesthetized rat |journal=Laboratory Animals |date=January 2014 |volume=48 |issue=1 |pages=15–19 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259456691 |doi=10.1177/0023677213502016 |pmid=24367032 |access-date=18 March 2019 |archive-date=8 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240608031120/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259456691_Electroencephalographic_evaluation_of_decapitation_of_the_anesthetized_rat |url-status=live }}

Some animals (such as cockroaches) can survive decapitation and die not because of the loss of the head directly, but rather because of starvation.{{cite web |url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-cockroach-can-live-without-head |title=Fact or Fiction?: A Cockroach Can Live without Its Head |first=Charles |last=Choi |website=Scientific American |access-date=25 February 2017 |archive-date=27 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131227211121/http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-cockroach-can-live-without-head |url-status=live }} A number of other animals, including snakes, and turtles, have also been known to survive for some time after being decapitated, as they have slower metabolisms and their nervous systems can continue to function at some capacity for a limited time even after connection to the brain is lost, responding to any nearby stimulus.{{cite web |last1=Leahy |first1=Stephen |title=Decapitated Snake Head Nearly Kills Man – Here's How |url=https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/texas-man-bit-decapitated-rattlesnake-venom-animals/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180607193042/https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/texas-man-bit-decapitated-rattlesnake-venom-animals/ |archive-date=7 June 2018 |website=National Geographic |access-date=7 August 2018 |date=7 June 2018}}{{cite news |title=AL man battles headless rattlesnake |url=http://www.wsfa.com/story/38376061/video-alabama-man-battles-headless-rattlesnake |work=WSFA 12 News |access-date=7 August 2018 |date=7 June 2018 |archive-date=8 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240608031050/https://www.wsfa.com/story/38376061/video-alabama-man-battles-headless-rattlesnake/ |url-status=live }} In addition, the bodies of chickens and turtles may continue to move temporarily after decapitation.{{cite web |last1=Sjøgren |first1=Kristian |title=Why do headless chickens run? |url=http://sciencenordic.com/why-do-headless-chickens-run |website=ScienceNordic |access-date=7 August 2018 |date=13 February 2014 |archive-date=7 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180807063645/http://sciencenordic.com/why-do-headless-chickens-run |url-status=live }}

Although head transplantation by the reattachment of blood vessels has seen some very limited success in animals,{{cite book|last=Roach |first=Mary |year=2004 |title=Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-32482-2 |page=208 |title-link=Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers}} a fully functional reattachment of a severed human head (including repair of the spinal cord, muscles, and other critically important tissues) is not likely.{{citation needed|date=April 2025}}

File:Heads on pikes.jpg]]

Early versions of the guillotine included the Halifax Gibbet, which was used in Halifax, England, from 1286 until the 17th century, and the "Maiden", employed in Edinburgh from the 16th through the 18th centuries.

The modern form of the guillotine was invented shortly before the French Revolution with the aim of creating a quick and painless method of execution requiring little skill on the part of the operator. Decapitation by guillotine became a common mechanically assisted form of execution.

The French observed a strict code of etiquette surrounding such executions. For example, a man named Legros, one of the assistants at the execution of Charlotte Corday, was imprisoned for three months and dismissed for slapping the face of the victim after the blade had fallen in order to see whether any flicker of life remained.Mignet, François, History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814, (1824). The guillotine was used in France during the French Revolution and remained the normal judicial method in both peacetime and wartime into the 1970s, although the firing squad was used in certain cases. France abolished the death penalty in 1981.

The guillotine was also used in Algeria before the French relinquished control of it, as shown in Gillo Pontecorvo's film The Battle of Algiers.

File:Auguste Vaillant execution.jpg just before being guillotined in 1894]]

Many German states had used a guillotine-like device known as a {{lang|de|Fallbeil}} ("falling axe") since the 17th and 18th centuries, and decapitation by guillotine was the usual means of execution in Germany until the abolition of the death penalty in West Germany in 1949. It was last used in communist East Germany in 1966.

In Nazi Germany, the {{lang|de|Fallbeil}} was reserved for common criminals and people convicted of political crimes, including treason. Members of the White Rose resistance movement, a group of students in Munich that included siblings Sophie and Hans Scholl, were executed by decapitation.

Contrary to popular myth, executions were generally not conducted face-up, and chief executioner Johann Reichhart was insistent on maintaining "professional" protocol throughout the era, having administered the death penalty during the earlier Weimar Republic. Nonetheless, it is estimated that some 16,500 persons were guillotined in Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945, a number that includes resistance fighters both within Germany itself and in countries occupied by Nazi forces. As these resistance fighters were not part of any regular army, they were considered common criminals and were in many cases transported to Germany for execution. Decapitation was considered a "dishonorable" death, in contrast to execution by firing squad.{{citation needed|date=December 2011}}

File:Ambrogio Lorenzetti 005.jpg]]

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the conflict and ethnic massacre between local army and Kamuina Nsapu rebels has caused several deaths and atrocities such as rape and mutilation. One of them is decapitation, both a fearsome way to intimidate victims as well as an act that may include ritualistic elements. According to a UN report from Congolese refugees, they believed the Bana Mura and Kamuina Nsapu militias have "magical powers" as a result of drinking the blood of decapitated victims, making them invincible.{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/04/army-bewitched-children-involved-congo-massacres-un-reports/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/04/army-bewitched-children-involved-congo-massacres-un-reports/ |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Army of 'bewitched' children involved in Congo massacres as UN reports hundreds of deaths |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |date=4 August 2017 |author=Our Foreign Staff}}{{cbignore}}

Besides the massive decapitations (like the beheading of 40 members of the State Police), a globally notorious case happened in March 2017 to Swedish politician Zaida Catalán and American UN expert Michael Sharp, who were kidnapped and executed during a mission near the village of Ngombe in Kasaï Province. The UN was reportedly horrified when video footage of the executions surfaced in April that same year, where some grisly details led to assume ritual components of the beheading: the perpetrators first cut the hair of both victims, and then one of them beheaded Catalán only, because it would "increase his power",{{cite web |url=http://www.lalibre.be/dernieres-depeches/afp/meurtre-de-deux-experts-de-l-onu-la-rdc-presente-une-video-58fe3008cd70812a659fffed |title=Meurtre de deux experts de l'ONU: la RDC présente une vidéo |trans-title=Murder of two UN experts: the DRC presents a video |website=Lalibre.be |access-date=5 August 2017 |language=fr |archive-date=6 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170806064445/http://www.lalibre.be/dernieres-depeches/afp/meurtre-de-deux-experts-de-l-onu-la-rdc-presente-une-video-58fe3008cd70812a659fffed |url-status=live }} which may be linked to the fact that Congolese militias are particularly brutal in their acts of violence toward women and children.{{cite web |url=https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23263&LangID=E |title=UN Experts conclude crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Kasai, warn against risk of new wave of ethnic violence |website=Ohchr.org |access-date=13 July 2018 |archive-date=13 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180713042922/https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23263&LangID=E |url-status=live }}

In the trial that followed investigations after the bodies were discovered, and according to a testimony of a primary school teacher from Bunkonde, near the village of Moyo Musuila where the executions took place, he witnessed a teenage militant carrying the young woman's head,{{cite web |url=https://www.aftonbladet.se/a/jo8bA |title=In English Aftonbladet reveals new information about the murders of Zaida Catalán and Michael Sharp |website=Aftonbladet |date=7 October 2017 |access-date=2 August 2020 |archive-date=28 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200928102909/https://www.aftonbladet.se/a/jo8bA |url-status=live }} but despite the efforts of the investigation, the head was never found. According to a report published on 29 May 2019, the Monusco peacekeeping military mission led by Colonel Luis Mangini, in the search for the missing remains, arrived to a ritual place in Moyo Musila where "parts of bodies, hands and heads" were cut and used for rituals,{{cite web |url=https://www.passblue.com/2019/05/29/how-uruguayan-peacekeepers-found-the-two-dead-un-experts-in-congo-in-2017/ |title=How Uruguayan Peacekeepers Found the Two Dead UN Experts in Congo in 2017 |date=29 May 2019 |access-date=30 August 2019 |archive-date=11 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231011125222/https://www.passblue.com/2019/05/29/how-uruguayan-peacekeepers-found-the-two-dead-un-experts-in-congo-in-2017/ |url-status=live }} where they lost track of the victim's head.

During the 2016 Armenian–Azerbaijani clashes, Yazidi-Armenian serviceman Kyaram Sloyan was decapitated by Azerbaijani servicemen.{{cite news |date=11 April 2016 |title=Armenian Soldier Reburied |agency=Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Armenian Service |url=http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/27665737.html |access-date=6 July 2022 |archive-date=14 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160414020202/http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/27665737.html |url-status=live }}{{cite news |last1=Beliakov |first1=Dmitry |last2=Franchetti |first2=Mark |date=10 April 2016 |title=Former Russian states on brink of renewing war |work=The Sunday Times |url=http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/world_news/Middle_East/article1686450.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2016_04_09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160419152207/http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/world_news/Middle_East/article1686450.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2016_04_09 |archive-date=19 April 2016}}{{Cite web |last=Kerkonian |first=Karnig |date=2016-05-19 |title=Illinois voters support Senator Kirk's call for pro-peace measures in Nagorno-Karabakh |url=https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/280472-illinois-voters-support-senator-kirks-call-for-pro-peace/ |access-date=2022-07-06 |website=The Hill |language=en-US |archive-date=6 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220706212830/https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/280472-illinois-voters-support-senator-kirks-call-for-pro-peace/ |url-status=live }}

Several reports of decapitation, along with other types of mutilation of Armenian POWs by Azerbaijani soldiers, emerged in 2020 during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.{{cite web |date=2 December 2020 |title=Azerbaijan: Armenian Prisoners of War Badly Mistreated |url=https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/02/azerbaijan-armenian-prisoners-war-badly-mistreated |access-date=9 December 2020 |work=Human Rights Watch |archive-date=23 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230223105015/https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/02/azerbaijan-armenian-prisoners-war-badly-mistreated |url-status=live }}

File:Caishikou Beheaded Corpses2.jpeg, Beijing, China, 1905]]

In traditional China, decapitation was considered a more severe form of punishment than strangulation, although strangulation caused more prolonged suffering. This was because in Confucian tradition, a person's body was a gift from their parents, and so it was therefore disrespectful to their ancestors to return their bodies to the grave dismembered. The Chinese, however, had other punishments, such as dismembering the body into multiple pieces (similar to the English quartering). In addition, there was also a practice of cutting the body at the waist, which was a common method of execution before being abolished in the early Qing dynasty due to the lingering death it caused. In some tales, people did not die immediately after decapitation.{{cite web|url=http://bbs.04gd.com/viewthread.php?tid=547&fpage=1 |title=原來斬頭係唔會即刻死既(仲識講野)中國有好多斬頭案例!! |access-date=25 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110707054827/http://bbs.04gd.com/viewthread.php?tid=547&fpage=1 |archive-date=7 July 2011 }}{{cite web |url=http://xn--gmq282eogn.cn/GB/kejiao/42/154/20030410/968308.html |title="无头人"挑战传统医学 人类还有个"腹脑"? |access-date=21 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120803114144/http://xn--gmq282eogn.cn/GB/kejiao/42/154/20030410/968308.html |archive-date=3 August 2012 }}{{cite web|url=http://www.66163.com/Fujian_w/news/fzwb/990124t/3-3.htm |title=福州晚報 |access-date=25 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019042249/http://www.66163.com/Fujian_w/news/fzwb/990124t/3-3.htm |archive-date=19 October 2017 }}{{cite web|url=http://www.cst21.com.cn/3/hrt.htm |title=换人头 |access-date=25 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090620030109/http://www.cst21.com.cn/3/hrt.htm |archive-date=20 June 2009 }}

The British officer John Masters recorded in his autobiography that Pathans in British India during the Anglo-Afghan Wars would behead enemy soldiers who were captured, such as British and Sikh soldiers.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NhdbAAAAMAAJ |title=Bugles and a tiger: a volume of autobiography |first=John |last=Masters |year=1956 |publisher=Viking Press |page=190 |isbn=978-0-670-19450-6 |access-date=2 August 2020 |archive-date=8 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240608031630/https://books.google.com/books?id=NhdbAAAAMAAJ |url-status=live }}{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ln_jAAAAMAAJ |title=The Frontier Ablaze: The North-west Frontier Rising, 1897–98 |first1=Michael |last1=Barthorp |first2=Douglas N. |last2=Anderson |year=1996 |publisher=Windrow & Greene |isbn=978-1-85915-023-8 |page=12 |access-date=23 March 2016 |archive-date=8 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240608031549/https://books.google.com/books?id=ln_jAAAAMAAJ |url-status=live }}{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oRdbAAAAMAAJ |title=John Masters: a regimented life |first=John |last=Clay |year=1992 |publisher=Michael Joseph |location=University of Michigan |isbn=978-0-7181-2945-3 |page=62 |access-date=2 August 2020 |archive-date=8 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240608031550/https://books.google.com/books?id=oRdbAAAAMAAJ |url-status=live }}{{cite book|title=Bugles and a Tiger |first=John |last=Masters |date=2002 |publisher=Cassell Military |isbn=978-0-304-36156-4 |page=190}}

The Execution of Sambhaji was a significant event in 17th-century Deccan India, where the second Maratha King was put to death by order of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. The conflicts between the Mughals and the Deccan Sultanates, which resulted in the downfall of the Sultanates, paved the way for tensions between the Marathas and the Mughals. Aurangzeb was drawn to Southern India due to the vanquished rebel Akbar fleeing to the Maratha monarch, Sambhaji. The Maratha King was then captured by the Mughal general Muqarrab Khan. Sambhaji and his minister Kavi Kalash were then taken to Tulapur, where they were tortured to death.

File:Illustration of the Decapitation of Violent Chinese Soldiers by Utagawa Kokunimasa 1894.png]]

File:Beheading of Leonard George Siffleet.jpg, an Australian POW captured in New Guinea, about to be beheaded by a Japanese soldier with a shin guntō sword, 1943]]

In Japan, decapitation was a common punishment, sometimes for minor offences. Samurai were often allowed to decapitate soldiers who had fled from battle, as it was considered cowardly. Decapitation was historically performed as the second step in seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment). After the victim had sliced his own abdomen open, another warrior would strike his head off from behind with a katana to hasten death and to reduce the suffering. The blow was expected to be precise enough to leave intact a small strip of skin at the front of the neck—to spare invited and honored guests the indelicacy of witnessing a severed head rolling about, or towards them; such an occurrence would have been considered inelegant and in bad taste. The sword was expected to be used upon the slightest sign that the practitioner might yield to pain and cry out—avoiding dishonor to him and to all partaking in the privilege of observing an honorable demise. As skill was involved, only the most trusted warrior was honored by taking part. In the late Sengoku period, decapitation was performed as soon as the person chosen to carry out seppuku had made the slightest wound to his abdomen.

Decapitation (without seppuku) was also considered a very severe and degrading form of punishment. One of the most brutal decapitations was that of {{ill|Sugitani Zenjubō|ja|杉谷善住坊}} (杉谷善住坊), who attempted to assassinate Oda Nobunaga, a prominent daimyō, in 1570.{{Disputed inline|date=November 2020}} After being caught, Zenjubō was buried alive in the ground with only his head out, and the head was slowly sawn off with a bamboo saw by passers-by for several days (punishment by sawing; {{ill|nokogiribiki|ja|鋸挽き|lt={{lang|ja-Latn|nokogiribiki|nocat=yes}}}} ({{lang|ja|鋸挽き}}).{{cite web |url=https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%96%84%E4%BD%8F%E5%9D%8A-1085457 |title=善住坊とは |website=Kotobank.jp |access-date=21 February 2022 |archive-date=21 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220221145010/https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%96%84%E4%BD%8F%E5%9D%8A-1085457 |url-status=live }} These unusual punishments were abolished in the early Meiji era. A similar scene is described in the last page of James Clavell's book Shōgun{{Dubious|date=November 2020}}.

Historically, decapitation had been the most common method of execution in Korea, until it was replaced by hanging in 1896. Professional executioners were called {{Transliteration|ko|mangnani}} (망나니) and they were volunteered from death rows.{{citation needed|date=September 2018}}

Decapitation was the main method of execution in Thailand, until it was replaced by shooting in 1934.

File:Trảm tù - Trung tâm Lưu trữ quốc gia I.jpg in the book Mechanics and Crafts of the People of Annam]]

File:Máy chém.jpg, South Vietnam]]

Execution by beheading was one of the most common forms of execution in Vietnam under the feudal system. This form of execution still existed in the South Vietnam regime until 1962.

During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995) there were a number of ritual beheadings of Serbs and Croats who were taken as prisoners of war by mujahideen members of the Bosnian Army. At least one case is documented and proven in court by the ICTY where mujahedin, members of 3rd Corps of Army BiH, beheaded Bosnian Serb Dragan Popović.{{cite web |url=https://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/2006/p1054-e.htm |title=UN – TRIBUNAL CONVICTS ENVER HADZIHASANOVIC AND AMIR KUBURA Press Release, March 2006 |website=UN.org |publisher=United Nations |access-date=21 February 2022 |archive-date=8 May 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090508193314/http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/2006/p1054-e.htm |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/had-3ai030926e.htm |title=Third Amended Indictment |access-date=13 October 2006 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090805095536/http://www.un.org/icty/indictment/english/had-3ai030926e.htm |archive-date=5 August 2009}}

File:The execution of King Charles I from NPG.jpg of King Charles I{{cite web |title=The Execution of King Charles I |url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw35443/The-execution-of-King-Charles-I |website=National Portrait Gallery |access-date=2 March 2019 |archive-date=14 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190414134140/https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw35443/The-execution-of-King-Charles-I |url-status=live }}]]

In British history, beheading was typically used for noblemen, while commoners would be hanged; eventually, hanging was adopted as the standard means of non-military executions. The last actual execution by beheading was of Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat on 9 April 1747, while a number of convicts were beheaded posthumously up to the early 19th century.{{cite book|title=The Last Highlander |last1=Fraser |first1=Sarah |date=2012 |page=9}} (Typically traitors were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, a method which had already been discontinued.) Beheading was degraded to a secondary means of execution, including for treason, with the abolition of drawing and quartering in 1870 and finally abolished by the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1973.{{cite book|last=Kenny |first=C. |title=Outlines of Criminal Law |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=1936 |edition=15th |page=323}}The Chronological Table of the Statutes, 1235–2010. The Stationery Office. 2011. {{ISBN|978-0-11-840509-6}}. Part II. p. 1243, read with pages viii and x of Part I. One of the most notable executions by decapitation in Britain was that of King Charles I of England, who was beheaded outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall in 1649, after being captured by parliamentarians during the English Civil War and tried for treason.{{citation |last=Gheeraert-Graffeuille |first=Claire |year=2011 |title=The Tragedy of Regicide in Interregnum and Restoration Histories of the English Civil Wars |journal=Études Épistémè |volume=20 |issue=20 |doi=10.4000/episteme.430|doi-access=free }}{{citation |last=Holmes |first=Clive |year=2010 |title=The Trial and Execution of Charles I |journal=The Historical Journal |volume=53 |issue=2 |pages=289–316 |doi=10.1017/S0018246X10000026 |s2cid=159524099 }}

In England, a bearded axe was used for beheading, with the blade's edge extending downwards from the tip of the shaft.{{Citation needed|date=February 2009}}

{{see also|Celtic headhunting}}

The Celts of western Europe long pursued a "cult of the severed head", as evidenced by both Classical literary descriptions and archaeological contexts.{{cite book|author-link=Barry Cunliffe |last=Cunliffe |first=Barry |date=2010 |title=Druids: A Very Short Introduction |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=71–72}} This cult played a central role in their temples and religious practices and earned them a reputation as head hunters among the Mediterranean peoples. Diodorus Siculus, in his 1st-century Historical Library (5.29.4) wrote the following about Celtic head-hunting:

{{blockquote|They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses. The blood-stained spoils they hand over to their attendants and striking up a paean and singing a song of victory; and they nail up these first fruits upon their houses, just as do those who lay low wild animals in certain kinds of hunting. They embalm in cedar oil the heads of the most distinguished enemies, and preserve them carefully in a chest, and display them with pride to strangers, saying that for this head one of their ancestors, or his father, or the man himself, refused the offer of a large sum of money. They say that some of them boast that they refused the weight of the head in gold.}}

Both the Greeks and Romans found the Celtic decapitation practices shocking and the latter put an end to them when Celtic regions came under their control.

File:Testa in pietra con più facce, da corleck hill, co. di cavan, I-II secolo dc. 03.jpg, Irish, 1st or 2nd century AD]]

According to Paul Jacobsthal, "Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the other-world."Paul Jacobsthal Early Celtic Art Arguments for a Celtic cult of the severed head include the many sculptured representations of severed heads in La Tène carvings, and the surviving Celtic mythology, which is full of stories of the severed heads of heroes and the saints who carry their own severed heads, right down to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where the Green Knight picks up his own severed head after Gawain has struck it off in a beheading game, just as Saint Denis carried his head to the top of Montmartre.Wilhelm, James J. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." The Romance of Arthur. Ed. Wilhelm, James J. New York: Garland Publishing, 1994. 399–465.{{cite book|author-first=Paolo O. |author-last=Pirlo |title=My First Book of Saints |year=1997 |publisher=Sons of Holy Mary Immaculate – Quality Catholic Publications |isbn=971-91595-4-5 |pages=238–239 |chapter=St. Denis}}

A further example of this regeneration after beheading lies in the tales of Connemara's Saint Féchín, who after being beheaded by Vikings carried his head to the Holy Well on Omey Island and on dipping it into the well placed it back upon his neck and was restored to full health.Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland, p. 467 n. 82.

File:Schnorr_von_Carolsfeld_Bibel_in_Bildern_1860_187.png by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld, 1860]]

{{Quote box

| quote = Pothinus matched Mark Antony in crime:
They slew the noblest Romans of their time.
The helpless victims they decapitated,
An act of infamy with shame related.
One head was Pompey's, who brought triumphs home,
The other Cicero's, the voice of Rome.

|source= — Martial, Epigram I:60 (Trans. by Garry Wills)

| width = 26em

| align = left

}}

The ancient Greeks and Romans regarded decapitation as a comparatively honorable form of execution for criminals. The traditional procedure, however, included first being tied to a stake and whipped with rods. Axes were used by the Romans, and later swords, which were considered a more honorable instrument of death. Those who could verify that they were Roman citizens were to be beheaded, rather than undergoing crucifixion. In the Roman Republic of the early 1st century BC, it became the tradition for the severed heads of public enemies—such as the political opponents of Marius and Sulla—to be publicly displayed on the Rostra in the Forum Romanum after execution. Perhaps the most famous beheading was that of Cicero who, on instructions from Mark Antony, had his hands (which had penned the Philippicae against Antony) and his head cut off and nailed up for display in this manner.

In France, until the abolition of capital punishment in 1981, the main method of execution had been by beheading by means of the guillotine. Other than a small number of military cases in which a firing squad was used (including that of Jean Bastien-Thiry), the guillotine was the only legal method of execution from 1791, when it was introduced by the Legislative Assembly during the last days of the kingdom French Revolution, until 1981. Before the revolution, beheading had typically been reserved for noblemen and carried out manually. In 1981, President François Mitterrand abolished capital punishment and issued commutations for those whose sentences had not been carried out.

The first person executed by the guillotine in France was highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier in April 1792. The last execution was of murderer Hamida Djandoubi, in Marseille, in 1977.{{citation |title=Il y a 30 ans, avait lieu la dernière exécution |trans-title=Thirty years ago, the last execution took place |url=http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualites/societe/20070910.OBS4158/il_y_a_30_ans_avait_lieula_derniere_execution.html |work=Le Nouvel Observateur |date=10 September 2007 |access-date=28 March 2014 |language=FR |archive-date=27 February 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080227015639/http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualites/societe/20070910.OBS4158/il_y_a_30_ans_avait_lieula_derniere_execution.html }} ({{Google translation|en|fr|3=http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualites/societe/20070910.OBS4158/il_y_a_30_ans_avait_lieula_derniere_execution.html}}) Throughout its extensive overseas colonies and dependencies, the device was also used, including on St Pierre in 1889 and on Martinique as late as 1965.{{cite web |url=http://grandcolombier.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/zuzaregui.jpg |format=JPG |title=Photographic image of newspaper article |website=Grandcolombier.com |access-date=21 February 2022 |archive-date=1 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201035012/http://grandcolombier.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/zuzaregui.jpg |url-status=live }}

• Fritz Haarmann, a serial killer from Hannover who was sentenced to death for killing 27 young men, was decapitated in April 1925. He was nicknamed "The Butcher from Hannover" and was rumored to have sold his victims' flesh to his neighbor's restaurant.
• In July 1931, notorious serial killer Peter Kürten, known as "The Vampire of Düsseldorf", was executed on the guillotine in Cologne.
• On 1 August 1933, in Altona, Bruno Tesch and three others were beheaded. These were the first executions in Nazi Germany. The executions concerned the Altona Bloody Sunday (Altonaer Blutsonntag) riot, an SA march on 17 July 1932 that turned violent and led to 18 people being shot dead.{{cite web |url=http://www.asfpg.de/english/4763/17330.html |title=asfpg ~ Altonaer Stiftung für philosophische Grundlagenforschung |access-date=25 February 2017 |archive-date=31 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170531181653/http://www.asfpg.de/english/4763/17330.html |url-status=live }}{{cite news|url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/157552/The-Axe-of-Wandsbek/overview |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081207113544/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/157552/The-Axe-of-Wandsbek/overview |archive-date=7 December 2008 |department=Movies & TV Dept. |work=The New York Times |author-first=Eleanor |author-last=Mannikka |date=2008 |title=Movies: About Das Beil von Wandsbek}}
• Marinus van der Lubbe by guillotine in 1934 after a show trial in which he was found guilty of starting the Reichstag fire.
• In February 1935 Benita von Falkenhayn and Renate von Natzmer were beheaded with the axe and block in Berlin for espionage for Poland. Axe beheading was the only method of execution in Berlin until 1938, when it was decreed that all civil executions would henceforth be carried out by guillotine. However, the practice was continued in rare cases such as that of Olga Bancic and Werner Seelenbinder in 1944. Beheading by guillotine survived in West Germany until 1949 and in East Germany until 1966.
• A group of three Catholic clergymen, Johannes Prassek, Eduard Müller and Hermann Lange, and an Evangelical Lutheran pastor, Karl Friedrich Stellbrink, were arrested following the bombing of Lübeck, tried by the People's Court in 1943 and sentenced to death by decapitation; all were beheaded on 10 November 1943, in the Hamburg prison at Holstenglacis. Stellbrink had explained the raid next morning in his Palm Sunday sermon as a "trial by ordeal", which the Nazi authorities interpreted to be an attack on their system of government and as such undermined morale and aided the enemy.
• In October 1944, Werner Seelenbinder was executed by manual beheading, the last legal use of the method (other than by guillotine) in both Europe and the rest of the Western world. Earlier the same year, Olga Bancic had been executed by the same means.
• In February 1943, American academic Mildred Harnack and the university students Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst of the White Rose protest movement, were all beheaded by the Nazi State. Four other members of the White Rose, an anti-Nazi group, were also executed by the People's Court later that same year. The anti-Nazi Helmuth Hübener was also decapitated by People's Court order.{{cite web |url=https://www.jta.org/archive/east-germany-reports-execution-of-auschwitz-selection-physician |title=East Germany Reports Execution of Auschwitz 'selection' Physician |website=Jta.org |date=11 July 1966 |access-date=21 February 2022 |archive-date=21 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220221145011/https://www.jta.org/archive/east-germany-reports-execution-of-auschwitz-selection-physician |url-status=live }}
• In 1966, former Auschwitz doctor Horst Fischer was executed by the German Democratic Republic by guillotine, the last executed by this method in Europe outside France. Beheading was subsequently replaced by shooting in the neck.{{cite news |url=https://www.spiegel.de/politik/nahschuss-in-den-hinterkopf-a-0a66680e-0002-0001-0000-000013489942?context=issue |title="Nahschuß in den Hinterkopf" |trans-title="Close Shot In The Back Of The Head" |first=Hans |last=Halter |work=Der Spiegel |date=25 August 1991 |access-date=29 March 2021 |language=de |archive-date=18 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220118175053/https://www.spiegel.de/politik/nahschuss-in-den-hinterkopf-a-0a66680e-0002-0001-0000-000013489942?context=issue |url-status=live }}

In Nordic countries, decapitation was the usual means of carrying out capital punishment. Noblemen were beheaded with a sword, and commoners with an axe. The last executions by decapitation in Finland in 1825, Norway in 1876, Faroe Islands in 1609, and in Iceland in 1830 were carried out with axes. The same was the case in Denmark in 1892. Sweden continued the practice for a few decades, executing its second to last criminal—mass murderer Johan Filip Nordlund—by axe in 1900. It was replaced by the guillotine, which was used for the first and only time on Johan Alfred Ander in 1910.

Finland's official beheading axe resides today at the Museum of Crime in Vantaa. It is a broad-bladed two-handed axe. It was last used when murderer Tahvo Putkonen was executed in 1825, the last execution in peacetime in Finland.{{cite journal |last=Otonkoski |first=Pirkko-Leena |title=Henkirikoksista kuolemaan tuomittujen kohtaloita vuosina 1824–1825 Suomessa |trans-title=The fates of those sentenced to death for homicides in 1824–1825 in Finland |url=http://www.genealogia.fi/genos/68/68_55.htm |journal=Genos |language=fi |volume=68 |pages=55–69, 94–95 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101227081225/http://genealogia.fi/genos/68/68_55.htm |archive-date=27 December 2010 |access-date=14 December 2010}}

File:Colecta para sepultar el cadáver de don Álvaro de Luna, por Rodríguez de Losada.jpg. Painting by José María Rodríguez de Losada (1826–1896).]]

In Spain executions were carried out by various methods including strangulation by the garrotte. In the 16th and 17th centuries, noblemen were sometimes executed by means of beheading. Examples include Anthony van Stralen, Lord of Merksem, Lamoral, Count of Egmont and Philip de Montmorency, Count of Horn. They were tied to a chair on a scaffold. The executioner used a knife to cut the head from the body. It was considered to be a more honourable death if the executioner started with cutting the throat.Execution of the Marquess of Ayamonte on the 11th. of December 1645 Described in "Varios relatos diversos de Cartas de Jesuitas" (1634–1648) Coll. Austral Buones Aires 1953 en Dr. J. Geers "Van het Barokke leven", Baarn 1957 Bl. 183–188.

Iran, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has alleged it uses beheading as one of the methods of punishment.{{cite web |url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/021/1990/en/ |title=Iran: Violation of Human Rights 1987–1990 |date=1 December 1990 |publisher=Amnesty International |access-date=5 November 2019 |archive-date=9 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181209124547/https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/021/1990/en/ |url-status=live }}[https://www.congress.gov/bill/108th-congress/senate-bill/1082/text Text of the Iran Democracy Act] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191105175426/https://www.congress.gov/bill/108th-congress/senate-bill/1082/text |date=5 November 2019 }}, United States Senate

File:Assyrian military campaign in southern Mesopotamia, beheaded enemies, 7th century BC, from Nineveh, Iraq. The British Museum.jpg

Though not officially sanctioned, legal beheadings were carried out against at least 50 prostitutes and pimps under Saddam Hussein as late as 2000.{{cite web |url=http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article10190019.ab |title=Saddam halshögg 50 prostituerade |date=11 December 2000 |language=sv |trans-title=Saddam beheaded 50 prostitutes |access-date=25 February 2017 |archive-date=26 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170226132339/http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article10190019.ab |url-status=live }}

Beheadings have emerged as another terror tactic especially in Iraq since 2003.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/movies/14TERROR.html |title=The Terrorist as Auteur |first=Michael |last=Ignatieff |date=14 November 2004 |access-date=25 February 2017 |work=The New York Times |archive-date=28 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150528045132/http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/movies/14TERROR.html |url-status=live }} Civilians have borne the brunt of the beheadings, although U.S. and Iraqi military personnel have also been targeted. After kidnapping the victim, the kidnappers typically make some sort of demand of the government of the hostage's nation and give a time limit for the demand to be carried out, often 72 hours. Beheading is often threatened if the government fails to heed the wishes of the hostage takers. Sometimes, the beheadings are videotaped and made available on the Internet. One of the most publicized of such executions was that of Nick Berg.{{cite web |title=Beheading video tops web searches The decapitation of American Nick Berg and the Iraq war have replaced pornography and pop stars as the main internet searches |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2004/5/18/beheading-video-tops-web-searches |website=Al Jazeera |date=18 May 2004 |access-date=26 October 2021 |archive-date=8 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240608031707/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2004/5/18/beheading-video-tops-web-searches |url-status=live }}

Judicial execution is practiced in Iraq, but is generally carried out by hanging.

{{See also|Capital punishment in Saudi Arabia}}

Saudi Arabia has a criminal justice system based on Shari'ah law reflecting a particular state-sanctioned interpretation of Islam. Crimes such as rape, murder, apostasy, and sorcery{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2966790.stm |title=Saudi executioner tells all |date=5 June 2003 |access-date=11 July 2011 |work=BBC News |archive-date=1 April 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090401233508/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2966790.stm |url-status=live }} are punishable by beheading.{{cite web |url=https://www.questia.com/library/1G1-177028385/sword-of-justice-beheadings-rise-in-saudi-arabia |title=Sword of Justice? Beheadings Rise in Saudi Arabia |author-last=Weinberg |author-first=Jon |date=Winter 2008 |publisher=Harvard International Review |access-date=26 August 2017 |archive-date=20 March 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140320053529/https://www.questia.com/library/1G1-177028385/sword-of-justice-beheadings-rise-in-saudi-arabia }} It is usually carried out publicly by beheading with a sword.

A public beheading will typically take place around 9am. The convicted person is walked into the square and kneels in front of the executioner. The executioner uses a sword to remove the condemned person's head from his or her body at the neck with a single strike.{{cite web |url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/document/?indexNumber=mde23%2f004%2f1993&language=en |title=Saudi Arabia: An upsurge in public executions |publisher=Amnesty International |access-date=2 August 2020 |archive-date=1 May 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200501211651/https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/document/?indexNumber=mde23%2F004%2F1993&language=en |url-status=live }} After the convicted person is pronounced dead, a police official announces the crimes committed by the beheaded alleged criminal and the process is complete. The official might announce the same before the actual execution. This is the most common method of execution in Saudi Arabia.{{cite web |url=http://www.ibtimes.com/justice-sword-saudi-arabias-embrace-death-penalty-780819 |title=Justice by the Sword: Saudi Arabia's Embrace of the Death Penalty |date=11 September 2012 |work=International Business Times |access-date=5 April 2014 |archive-date=7 April 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407121151/http://www.ibtimes.com/justice-sword-saudi-arabias-embrace-death-penalty-780819 |url-status=live }}

According to Amnesty International, at least 79 people were executed in Saudi Arabia in 2013.{{cite web |url=http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/act500012014en.pdf |title=Death Sentences and Executions 2013 |publisher=Amnesty International |year=2014 |access-date=19 September 2014 |archive-date=4 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170304190649/http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/act500012014en.pdf }} Foreigners are not exempt, accounting for "almost half" of executions in 2013.

In 2015 Ashraf Fayadh (born 1980), a Saudi Arabian poet, was sentenced to be beheaded, but his sentence was later reduced to eight years in prison and 800 lashes, for apostasy.

The Syrian government employs hanging as its method of capital punishment. However, the terrorist organisation known as the Islamic State, which controlled territory in much of eastern Syria, had regularly carried out beheadings of people.{{cite news |title=Syrian Rebels used a child to behead a prisoner |url=http://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2012/12/10/syrian-rebels-use-a-child-to-behead-a-prisoner/ |publisher=Human Rights Investigation |date=12 December 2012 |access-date=22 March 2013 |archive-date=6 April 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130406055236/http://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2012/12/10/syrian-rebels-use-a-child-to-behead-a-prisoner/ |url-status=usurped }} Syrian rebels attempting to overthrow the Syrian government have been implicated in beheadings too.{{cite news|url=https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/jihadist-rebels-behead-2-syrian-soldiers-in-northern-syria/ |title=Jihadist rebels behead 2 Syrian soldiers in northern Syria |date=13 August 2019 |website=AMN – Al-Masdar News |language=en-US |access-date=14 August 2019 |archive-date=15 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190815031847/https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/jihadist-rebels-behead-2-syrian-soldiers-in-northern-syria/ }}{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/20/syrian-opposition-group-which-killed-child-was-in-us-vetted-alliance |title=Syrian opposition group that killed child 'was in US-vetted alliance' |work=The Guardian |access-date=9 April 2020 |archive-date=3 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190103012949/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/20/syrian-opposition-group-which-killed-child-was-in-us-vetted-alliance |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=http://www.syriahr.com/en/?p=155503 |title=Nearly 45 regime and Turkish soldiers and rebels killed in shelling and violent battles on Al-Nayrab frontline, east of Idlib |date=21 February 2020 |publisher=SOHR |access-date=9 April 2020 |archive-date=11 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200311151950/http://www.syriahr.com/en/?p=155503 |url-status=live }}

File:BeheadingPanelSBCTajin.JPG, Mexico]]

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, Ignacio Allende, José Mariano Jiménez and Juan Aldama were tried for treason, executed by firing squad and beheaded during the Mexican independence in 1811. Their heads were on display on the four corners of the Alhóndiga de Granaditas, in Guanajuato.

During the Mexican Drug War, some Mexican drug cartels turned to decapitation and beheading of rival cartel members as a method of intimidation.{{cite web|author-link=George W. Grayson |url=http://www.fpri.org/enotes/200901.grayson.lafamilia.html |title=La Familia: Another Deadly Mexican Syndicate |author-first=George W. |author-last=Grayson |date=February 2009 |publisher=Foreign Policy Research Institute |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090903015924/http://www.fpri.org//enotes/200901.grayson.lafamilia.html |archive-date=3 September 2009 }}

This trend of beheading and publicly displaying the decapitated bodies was started by the Los Zetas, a criminal group composed by former Mexican special forces operators, trained in the infamous US Army School of the Americas, in torture techniques and psychological warfare.Grayson, George W. (2012). The Executioner's Men: Los Zetas, Rogue Soldiers, Criminal Entrepreneurs, and the Shadow State They Created (1st ed.), p. 46, Transaction Publishers. {{ISBN|978-1-4128-4617-2}}{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uj4aCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA272 |title=American Foreign Relations: Volume 2: Since 1895 |first1=Thomas |last1=Paterson |first2=J. Garry |last2=Clifford |first3=Robert |last3=Brigham |first4=Michael |last4=Donoghue |first5=Kenneth |last5=Hagan |year=2014 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=978-1-285-43333-2 |access-date=30 December 2019 |archive-date=8 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240608031622/https://books.google.com/books?id=uj4aCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA272 |url-status=live }}{{cite web|url=http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2008/10/us-created-monsters-zetas-and-kaibiles-death-squads |title=US created monsters: Zetas and Kaibiles death squads |access-date=26 December 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161224040235/http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2008/10/us-created-monsters-zetas-and-kaibiles-death-squads |archive-date=24 December 2016 }}{{cite web |url=http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2012/04/los-zetas-recruit-las-maras-in.html |title=Borderland Beat: Los Zetas recruit Las Maras in Guatemala |author=badanov |access-date=26 December 2014 |archive-date=25 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225083845/http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2012/04/los-zetas-recruit-las-maras-in.html |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=http://www.cronica.com.mx/notas/2004/158801.html |title=Los Zetas fueron entrenados por la Escuela de las Américas |publisher=La Crónica de Hoy |trans-title=The Zetas were trained by the School of the Americas |language=es |website=cronica.com.mx |access-date=30 December 2019 |archive-date=25 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225134251/http://www.cronica.com.mx/notas/2004/158801.html }}{{cite web|url=http://www.soaw.org/component/content/article/1/1994 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170418211956/http://www.soaw.org/component/content/article/1/1994 |archive-date=18 April 2017 |title=U.S.-trained ex-soldiers form core of "Zetas" {{pipe}} SOA Watch: Close the School of the Americas |date=18 April 2017}}

The United States government has never employed beheading as a legal method of execution. However, beheading has sometimes been used in mutilations of the dead, particularly of black people like Nat Turner, who led a rebellion against slavery. When caught, he was publicly hanged, flayed, and beheaded. This was a technique used by many enslavers to discourage the "frequent bloody uprisings" that were carried out by "kidnapped Africans". While bodily dismemberment of various kinds was employed to instill terror, Dr. Erasmus D. Fenner noted postmortem decapitation was particularly effective.{{cite book|last1=Washington |first1=Harriet A. |date=2006 |publisher=Doubleday |title=Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present |location=New York. London. Toronto. Sydney. Austin. |page=126, paragraph 3}}

During the Vietnam War, as a terror tactic, "some American troops hacked the heads off... dead [Vietnamese] and mounted them on pikes or poles".{{cite book|last1=Turse |first1=Nick |title=Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam |date=2013 |publisher=Metropolitan Books |location=New York |page=163}} Correspondent Michael Herr noted "thousands" of photo-albums made by US soldiers "all seemed to contain the same pictures": "the severed head shot, the head often resting on the chest of the dead man or being held up by a smiling Marine, or a lot of the heads, arranged in a row, with a burning cigarette in each of the mouths, the eyes open". Some of the victims were "very young".{{cite book|last1=Turse |first1=Nick |title=Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam |date=2013 |publisher=Metropolitan Books |location=New York |page=162}}

{{anchor|George S. Patton III}}

General George Patton IV, son of the famous WWII general George S. Patton, was known for keeping "macabre souvenirs", such as "a Vietnamese skull that sat on his desk." Other Americans "hacked the heads off Vietnamese to keep, trade, or exchange for prizes offered by commanders."{{cite book|last1=Turse |first1=Nick |title=Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam |date=2013 |publisher=Metropolitan Books |location=New York |page=161}}

Although the Utah Territory permitted a person sentenced to death to choose beheading as a means of execution, no person chose that option, and it was dropped when Utah became a state.{{cite book |last=Miller |first=Wilbur R. |title=The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America: An Encyclopedia |year=2012 |publisher=Sage |isbn=978-1-4129-8876-6 |oclc=768569594 |page=1856 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tYME6Z35nyAC&pg=PA1856}}

{{main|List of people who were beheaded}}

• Atlanto-occipital dislocation, where the skull is dislodged from the spine; a generally, but not always, fatal injury.
• Beheading in Islam
• Beheading video
• Blood atonement
• Blood squirt, a result from a decapitation.
• Cephalophore, a martyred saint who is depicted carrying their severed head.
• Chhinnamasta, a Hindu goddess who supposedly decapitates herself and holds her head in her hand.
• Cleveland Torso Murderer, a serial killer who decapitated some of his victims.
• Dismemberment
• François-Jean de la Barre
• Headhunting
• List of methods of capital punishment
• Mike the Headless Chicken
• Head on a spike

{{reflist}}

{{Medical resources

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• {{commons category-inline}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060613171613/http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/history/landru/guillotine_7.html Crime Library] (archived)
• [http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/behead.html CapitalPunishmentUK.org]

{{Authority control}}

{{Capital punishment}}

Category:Capital punishment

Category:Causes of death

Category:Execution methods