Decapitation is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and all vertebrate animals, since it deprives the brain of
oxygenated blood
Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the Cell (biology), cells, and transports Metabolic waste, metabolic waste products away from th ...
by way of severing through the
jugular vein
The jugular veins () are veins that take blood from the head back to the heart via the superior vena cava. The internal jugular vein descends next to the internal carotid artery and continues posteriorly to the sternocleidomastoid muscle.
Struc ...
and
common carotid artery
In anatomy, the left and right common carotid arteries (carotids) () are artery, arteries that supply the head and neck with oxygenated blood; they divide in the neck to form the external carotid artery, external and internal carotid artery, inte ...
, while all other organs are deprived of the
involuntary functions that are needed for the body to function.
The term beheading refers to the act of deliberately decapitating a person, either as a means of murder or as an
execution
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in ...
; it may be performed with an
axe
An axe (; sometimes spelled ax in American English; American and British English spelling differences#Miscellaneous spelling differences, see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for thousands of years to shape, split, a ...
,
sword
A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...
, or
knife
A knife (: knives; from Old Norse 'knife, dirk') is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least Stone Age, 2.5 million years ago, as e ...
, or by mechanical means such as a
guillotine
A guillotine ( ) is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by Decapitation, beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secur ...
. An
executioner
An executioner, also known as a hangman or headsman, is an official who effects a sentence of capital punishment on a condemned person.
Scope and job
The executioner was usually presented with a warrant authorizing or ordering him to ...
who carries out executions by beheading is sometimes called a headsman. Accidental decapitation can be the result of an explosion, a car or industrial accident, improperly administered execution by
hanging
Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...
or other violent injury. The national laws of
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...
and
Yemen
Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...
permit beheading. Under
Sharia
Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on Islamic holy books, scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran, Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' ...
, which exclusively applies to Muslims, beheading is also a legal punishment in
Zamfara State
Zamfara (; ; Adlam script, Adlam: ) is a States of Nigeria, state in northwestern Nigeria. The capital of Zamfara state is Gusau and its current List of Governors of Zamfara State, governor is Dauda Lawal. Until 1996, the area was part of Soko ...
,
Nigeria
Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...
. In practice, Saudi Arabia is the only country that continues to behead its offenders regularly as a punishment for capital crimes. Cases of decapitation by suicidal hanging,
suicide by train decapitation
Rail suicide is deliberate self-harm resulting in death by means of a moving rail vehicle. The suicide occurs when an approaching train hits a suicidal pedestrian jumping onto, lying down on, or wandering or standing on the tracks. Low friction o ...
and by guillotine are known.
Less commonly, decapitation can also refer to the removal of the head from a body that is already dead. This might be done to take the head as a
trophy
A trophy is a tangible, decorative item used to remind of a specific achievement, serving as recognition or evidence of merit. Trophies are most commonly awarded for sports, sporting events, ranging from youth sports to professional level athlet ...
, as a secondary stage of an execution by hanging, for
public display, to make the deceased more difficult to identify, for
cryonics
Cryonics (from ''kryos'', meaning "cold") is the low-temperature freezing (usually at ) and storage of human remains in the hope that resurrection may be possible in the future. Cryonics is regarded with skepticism by the mainstream scien ...
, or for other, more esoteric reasons.
Etymology
The word decapitation has its roots in the Late Latin word . The meaning of the word can be discerned from its morphemes (down, from) + (head). The past participle of is
which was used to create , the noun form of , in Medieval Latin, whence the French word was produced.
History

Humans have practiced
capital punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...
by beheading for millennia. The
Narmer Palette
The Narmer Palette, also known as the Great Hierakonpolis Palette or the Palette of Narmer, is a significant Egyptian archaeological find, dating from about the 31st century BC, belonging, at least nominally, to the category of cosmetic palettes ...
(c. 3000 BCE) shows the first known depiction of decapitated corpses. The terms "capital offence", "capital crime", "capital punishment", derive from the Latin , "head", referring to the punishment for serious offences involving the forfeiture of the head; i.e. death by beheading.
Some cultures, such as ancient Rome and Greece, regarded decapitation as the most honorable form of death.
In the Middle Ages, many European nations continued to reserve the method only for nobles and royalty. 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
An axe (; sometimes spelled ax in American English; American and British English spelling differences#Miscellaneous spelling differences, see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for thousands of years to shape, split, a ...
or
sword
A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...
is sharp and his aim is precise, decapitation is quick and thought to be a relatively painless form of
death
Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose sh ...
. 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
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (; 10 November 1565 – 25 February 1601) was an English nobleman and a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I. Politically ambitious, he was placed under house arrest following a poor campaign in Ireland during th ...
, and
Mary, Queen of Scots
Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was List of Scottish monarchs, Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567.
The only surviving legit ...
required three strikes at their respective executions. The same could be said for the execution of
Johann Friedrich Struensee
Count, Lensgreve Johann Friedrich Struensee (5 August 1737 – 28 April 1772) was a German-Danish physician, philosopher and statesman. He became royal physician to the mentally ill King Christian VII of Denmark and a minister in the Danish gov ...
, favorite of the Danish queen
Caroline Matilda of Great Britain
Caroline Matilda of Great Britain (; 1751 – 10 May 1775) was Queen of Denmark and Norway from 1766 to 1772 by marriage to King Christian VII.
The youngest and posthumous daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Go ...
.
Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury
Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury (14 August 1473 – 27 May 1541), was the only surviving daughter of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence (a brother of Kings Edward IV and Richard III) and his wife Isabel Neville. As a result of Ma ...
, is said to have required up to 10 strokes before decapitation was achieved. This particular story may, however, be apocryphal, as highly divergent accounts exist. Historian and philosopher
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist who was best known for his highly influential system of empiricism, philosophical scepticism and metaphysical naturalism. Beg ...
, for example, relates the following about her death:

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.
Physiological aspects
Physiology of death by decapitation
Decapitation is quickly fatal to
humans
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...
and most
animals
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia (). With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, have myocytes and are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and grow from a ...
. Unconsciousness occurs within seconds without circulating oxygenated blood (
brain ischemia
Brain ischemia is a condition in which there is insufficient bloodflow to the brain to meet metabolic demand. This leads to cerebral hypoxia, poor oxygen supply in the brain and may be temporary such as in transient ischemic attack or permanent i ...
). Cell death and irreversible
brain damage
Brain injury (BI) is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur due to a wide range of internal and external factors. In general, brain damage refers to significant, undiscriminating trauma-induced damage.
A common ...
occurs after 3–6 minutes with no oxygen, due to
excitotoxicity
In excitotoxicity, neuron, nerve cells suffer damage or death when the levels of otherwise necessary and safe neurotransmitters such as glutamic acid, glutamate become pathologically high, resulting in excessive stimulation of cell surface recept ...
. Some anecdotes suggest more extended persistence of human consciousness after decapitation, 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 ("
onsciousness isprobably lost within 2–3 seconds, due to a rapid fall of intracranial
perfusion
Perfusion is the passage of fluid through the circulatory system or lymphatic system to an organ (anatomy), organ or a tissue (biology), tissue, usually referring to the delivery of blood to a capillary bed in tissue. Perfusion may also refer t ...
of blood").
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). 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), 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
In physiology, nociception , also nocioception; ) is the Somatosensory system, sensory nervous system's process of encoding Noxious stimulus, noxious stimuli. It deals with a series of events and processes required for an organism to receive a pai ...
across a number of different species of animals, including rats.
Some animals (such as
cockroach
Cockroaches (or roaches) are insects belonging to the Order (biology), order Blattodea (Blattaria). About 30 cockroach species out of 4,600 are associated with human habitats. Some species are well-known Pest (organism), pests.
Modern cockro ...
es) can survive decapitation and die not because of the loss of the head directly, but rather because of
starvation
Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy intake, below the level needed to maintain an organism's life. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, de ...
. A number of other animals, including
snake
Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...
s, and
turtle
Turtles are reptiles of the order (biology), order Testudines, characterized by a special turtle shell, shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Crypt ...
s, have also been known to survive for some time after being decapitated, as they have slower metabolisms and their
nervous system
In biology, the nervous system is the complex system, highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its behavior, actions and sense, sensory information by transmitting action potential, signals to and from different parts of its body. Th ...
s can continue to function at some capacity for a limited time even after connection to the brain is lost, responding to any nearby stimulus. In addition, the bodies of
chicken
The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...
s and turtles may continue to move temporarily after decapitation.
Although
head transplant
A head transplant or full body transplant is an experimental surgical operation involving the grafting of one organism's head onto the body of another. In many experiments, the recipient's head has not been removed, but in others it has been. Ex ...
ation by the reattachment of blood vessels has seen some very limited success in animals, a fully functional reattachment of a severed human head (including repair of the
spinal cord
The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular structure made up of nervous tissue that extends from the medulla oblongata in the lower brainstem to the lumbar region of the vertebral column (backbone) of vertebrate animals. The center of the spinal c ...
, muscles, and other critically important tissues) has not yet been achieved.
Technology
Guillotine
Early versions of the guillotine included the
Halifax Gibbet
The Halifax Gibbet was an early guillotine used in the town of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. Estimated to have been installed during the 16th century, it was used as an alternative to beheading by axe or sword. Halifax was once part of ...
, which was used in
Halifax, England, from 1286 until the 17th century, and the "
Maiden
Virginity is a social construct that denotes the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. As it is not an objective term with an operational definition, social definitions of what constitutes virginity, or the lack thereof ...
", employed in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
from the 16th through the 18th centuries.
The modern form of the
guillotine
A guillotine ( ) is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by Decapitation, beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secur ...
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
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in ...
.
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
Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont (27 July 1768 – 17 July 1793), known simply as Charlotte Corday (), was a figure of the French Revolution who assassinated revolutionary and Jacobins, Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat on 13 July 1793. Cor ...
, 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. 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
Firing may refer to:
* Dismissal (employment), sudden loss of employment by termination
* Firemaking, the act of starting a fire
* Burning; see combustion
* Shooting, specifically the discharge of firearms
* Execution by firing squad, a method of ...
was used in certain cases. France abolished the death penalty in 1981.
The guillotine was also used in
Algeria
Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...
before the
French
French may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France
** French people, a nation and ethnic group
** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices
Arts and media
* The French (band), ...
relinquished control of it, as shown in
Gillo Pontecorvo
Gilberto Pontecorvo (; 19 November 1919 – 12 October 2006) was an Italian filmmaker associated with the political cinema movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He is best known for directing the landmark war docudrama '' The Battle of Algiers'' (19 ...
's film ''
The Battle of Algiers
''The Battle of Algiers'' (; ) is a 1966 Italian-Algerian war film co-written and directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. It is based on action undertaken by rebels during the Algerian War (1954–1962) against the French government in North Africa, the ...
''.

Many German states had used a
guillotine
A guillotine ( ) is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by Decapitation, beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secur ...
-like device known as a ("falling axe") since the 17th and 18th centuries, and decapitation by guillotine was the usual means of execution in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
until the abolition of the death penalty in
West Germany
West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...
in 1949. It was last used in communist
East Germany
East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
in 1966.
In
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
, the was reserved for common criminals and people convicted of
political crime
In criminology, a political crime or political offence is an offence that prejudices the interests of the state or its government. States may criminalise any behaviour perceived as a threat, real or imagined, to the state's survival, including ...
s, including
treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...
. Members of the
White Rose
The White Rose (, ) was a Nonviolence, non-violent, intellectual German resistance to Nazism, resistance group in Nazi Germany which was led by five students and one professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, University of Munich ...
resistance movement, a group of students in
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
that included siblings
Sophie
Sophie is a feminine given name, another version of Sophia, from the Greek word for "wisdom".
People with the name Born in the Middle Ages
* Sophie, Countess of Bar (c. 1004 or 1018–1093), sovereign Countess of Bar and lady of Mousson
* Soph ...
and
Hans Scholl
Hans Fritz Scholl (; 22 September 1918 – 22 February 1943) was, along with Alexander Schmorell, one of the two founding members of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany. The principal author of the resistance movement's ...
, were executed by decapitation.
Contrary to popular myth, executions were generally not conducted face-up, and chief executioner
Johann Reichhart
Johann Reichhart (29 April 1893 – 26 April 1972) was a German state-appointed judicial executioner in Bavaria from 1924 to 1946. During the Nazi period, he executed numerous people who were sentenced to death for their resistance to the Germa ...
was insistent on maintaining "professional" protocol throughout the era, having administered the death penalty during the earlier
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
. Nonetheless, it is estimated that some 16,500 persons were guillotined in Germany and
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
between 1933 and 1945, a number that includes
resistance fighter
A resistance movement is an organized group of people that tries to resist or try to overthrow a government or an occupying power, causing disruption and unrest in civil order and stability. Such a movement may seek to achieve its goals through ei ...
s both within Germany itself and in
countries occupied by Nazi forces. As these resistance fighters were not part of any
regular army
A regular army is the official army of a state or country (the official armed forces), contrasting with irregular forces, such as volunteer irregular militias, private armies, mercenaries, etc. A regular army usually has the following:
* a ...
, they were considered
common criminals and were in many cases
transported
''Transported'' is an Australian convict melodrama film directed by W. J. Lincoln.
It is considered a lost film.
Plot
In England, Jessie Grey is about to marry Leonard Lincoln but the evil Harold Hawk tries to force her to marry him and she ...
to Germany for execution. Decapitation was considered a "dishonorable" death, in contrast to
execution by firing squad
Execution by firing squad, in the past sometimes called fusillading (from the French , rifle), is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war. Some reasons for its use are that firearms are usually rea ...
.
Historical practices by nation
Africa
Congo
In the
Democratic Republic of Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...
, 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.
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
Kasaï is one of the 21 provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo created in the 2015 repartitioning. Kasaï and Kasaï-Central provinces are the result of the dismemberment of the former Kasaï-Occidental province. Kasaï was formed ...
. 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", which may be linked to the fact that Congolese militias are particularly brutal in their acts of violence toward women and children.
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, 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, where they lost track of the victim's head.
Asia
Azerbaijan
During the
2016 Armenian–Azerbaijani clashes, Yazidi-Armenian serviceman
Kyaram Sloyan was decapitated by Azerbaijani servicemen.
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
The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was an armed conflict in 2020 that took place in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian-occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, surrounding occupied territories. It was a major esca ...
.
China

In traditional
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, decapitation was considered a more severe form of punishment than
strangulation
Strangling or strangulation is compression of the neck that may lead to unconsciousness or death by causing an increasingly hypoxic state in the brain by restricting the flow of oxygen through the trachea. Fatal strangulation typically occurs ...
, although strangulation caused more prolonged suffering. This was because in
Confucian
Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China, and is variously described as a tradition, philosophy, religion, theory of government, or way of life. Founded by Confucius ...
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
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
due to the lingering death it caused. In some tales, people did not die immediately after decapitation.
India
The British officer
John Masters
Lieutenant Colonel John Masters, DSO, OBE (26 October 1914 – 7 May 1983) was a British novelist and regular officer of the British Indian Army.
In World War II, he served with the Chindits behind enemy lines in Burma, and became the GSO1 ...
recorded in his autobiography that
Pathans
Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghans until 1964 after the ...
in British India during the
Anglo-Afghan War
Anglo-Afghan Wars may refer to:
* Expedition of Shah Shujah Durrani (1833–1834)
* First Anglo-Afghan War (1838–1842)
* Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880)
* Hazara Expedition (1888)
* Chitral Expedition (1895)
* Tochi Expedition (1897� ...
s would behead enemy soldiers who were captured, such as British and Sikh soldiers.
The
Execution of Sambhaji
Sambhaji, the second Maratha king, was put to death by order of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in the 17th-century. The conflicts between the Mughals and the Deccan Sultanates, which resulted in the downfall of the Sultanates, paved the way for t ...
was a significant event in 17th-century
Deccan
The Deccan is a plateau extending over an area of and occupies the majority of the Indian peninsula. It stretches from the Satpura and Vindhya Ranges in the north to the northern fringes of Tamil Nadu in the south. It is bound by the mount ...
India, where the second
Maratha
The Marathi people (; Marathi: , ''Marāṭhī lōk'') or Marathis (Marathi: मराठी, ''Marāṭhī'') are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are native to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-A ...
King was put to death by order of the
Mughal emperor
The emperors of the Mughal Empire, who were all members of the Timurid dynasty (House of Babur), ruled the empire from its inception on 21 April 1526 to its dissolution on 21 September 1857. They were supreme monarchs of the Mughal Empire in ...
Aurangzeb
Alamgir I (Muhi al-Din Muhammad; 3 November 1618 – 3 March 1707), commonly known by the title Aurangzeb, also called Aurangzeb the Conqueror, was the sixth Mughal emperors, Mughal emperor, reigning from 1658 until his death in 1707, becomi ...
. The conflicts between the
Mughals
The Mughal Empire was an early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of pre ...
and the
Deccan Sultanates
The Deccan sultanates is a historiographical term referring to five late medieval to early modern Persianate Indian Muslim kingdoms on the Deccan Plateau between the Krishna River and the Vindhya Range. They were created from the disintegrati ...
, 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
Akbar (Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, – ), popularly known as Akbar the Great, was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, who helped the young emperor expa ...
fleeing to the Maratha monarch,
Sambhaji
Sambhaji (Sambhajiraje Shivajiraje Bhonsle, ; 14 May 1657 – 11 March 1689), also known as Shambhuraje, ruled from 1681 to 1689 as the second king ( Chhatrapati) of the Maratha Empire, a prominent state in early modern India. He was the elde ...
. The Maratha King was then captured by the Mughal general
Muqarrab Khan
Muqarrab Khan of Golconda, also known as Khan Zaman Fath Jang Dakhini, was an Indian Deccani Muslim military personnel, who was the most experienced commander of Qutb Shahi Dynasty, during the reign of Abul Hasan Qutb Shah. He is known for betr ...
. Sambhaji and his minister
Kavi Kalash
Kavi Kalash was a poet, close friend, and helper to Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj of the Maratha Empire who reigned from 1680 to 1689.
He was portrayed by Vineet Kumar Singh in the 2025 Hindi film ''Chhaava''.
Early life
Born in Unnao distri ...
were then taken to
Tulapur
Tulapur is a village in Pune district, Maharashtra, India, associated with the last execution of Sambhaji, second Chatrapati and son of Shivaji.
Etymology
Tulapur village was originally known as Nagargaon. It was renamed Tulapur when Shahaji ...
, where they were tortured to death.
Japan

In
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
, decapitation was a common punishment, sometimes for minor offences.
Samurai
The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...
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
, also known as , is a form of Japanese ritualistic suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honor, but was also practiced by other Japanese people during the Shōwa era (particularly officers near ...
(ritual
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death.
Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...
by
disembowelment
Disembowelment, disemboweling, evisceration, eviscerating or gutting is the removal of Organ (biology), organs from the gastrointestinal tract (bowels or viscera), usually through an incision made across the Abdomen, abdominal area. Disembowelm ...
). After the victim had sliced his own
abdomen
The abdomen (colloquially called the gut, belly, tummy, midriff, tucky, or stomach) is the front part of the torso between the thorax (chest) and pelvis in humans and in other vertebrates. The area occupied by the abdomen is called the abdominal ...
open, another warrior would strike his head off from behind with a
katana
A is a Japanese sword characterized by a curved, single-edged blade with a circular or squared guard and long grip to accommodate two hands. Developed later than the ''tachi'', it was used by samurai in feudal Japan and worn with the edge fa ...
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
The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...
, 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 (杉谷善住坊), who attempted to assassinate
Oda Nobunaga
was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demo ...
, a prominent ''
daimyō
were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...
'', in 1570. 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; (). 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''.
Korea
Historically, decapitation had been the most common method of execution in Korea, until it was replaced by
hanging
Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...
in 1896. Professional executioners were called (망나니) and they were volunteered from death rows.
Thailand
Decapitation was the main method of
execution in Thailand, until it was replaced by
shooting
Shooting is the act or process of discharging a projectile from a ranged weapon (such as a gun, bow, crossbow, slingshot, or blowpipe). Even the acts of launching flame, artillery, darts, harpoons, grenades, rockets, and guided missile ...
in 1934.
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
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam (RVN; , VNCH), was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered Diplomatic recognition, international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the ...
regime until 1962.
Europe
Bosnia and Herzegovina
During the
war in Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Bosnian War ( / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. Following several earlier violent incidents, the war is commonly seen as ha ...
(1992–1995) there were a number of ritual beheadings of Serbs and Croats who were taken as prisoners of war by
mujahideen
''Mujahideen'', or ''Mujahidin'' (), is the plural form of ''mujahid'' (), an Arabic term that broadly refers to people who engage in ''jihad'' (), interpreted in a jurisprudence of Islam as the fight on behalf of God, religion or the commun ...
members of the
Bosnian Army. At least one case is documented and proven in court by the
ICTY
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to try their perpetrators. The tribun ...
where mujahedin, members of 3rd Corps of Army BiH, beheaded
Bosnian Serb
The Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sr-Cyrl, Срби Босне и Херцеговине, Srbi Bosne i Hercegovine), often referred to as Bosnian Serbs ( sr-cyrl, босански Срби, bosanski Srbi) or Herzegovinian Serbs ( sr-cyrl, � ...
Dragan Popović.
Britain

In
British history
The history of the British Isles began with its sporadic human habitation during the Palaeolithic from around 900,000 years ago. The British Isles has been continually occupied since the early Holocene, the current geological epoch, which star ...
, 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
Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, ( 1667 – 9 April 1747) was a Scottish landowner and head of Clan Fraser of Lovat. Convicted of high treason in the United Kingdom, high treason for his role in the Jacobite rising of 1745, he was the last ma ...
on 9 April 1747, while a number of convicts were beheaded posthumously up to the early 19th century.
(Typically traitors were sentenced to be
hanged, drawn and quartered
To be hanged, drawn and quartered was a method of torture, torturous capital punishment used principally to execute men convicted of High treason in the United Kingdom, high treason in medieval and early modern Britain and Ireland. The convi ...
, 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
The Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1973 (c. 39) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which implemented recommendations contained in the fourth report on statute law revision, by the Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission.
Thi ...
. One of the most notable executions by decapitation in Britain was that of
King Charles I of England
Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649.
Charles was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after h ...
, who was
beheaded
Decapitation is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and all vertebrate animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood by way of severing through the jugular vein and common c ...
outside the
Banqueting House
The Banqueting House, on Whitehall in the City of Westminster, central London, is the grandest and best-known survivor of the architectural genre of banqueting houses, constructed for elaborate entertaining. It is the only large surviving comp ...
in
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London, England. The road forms the first part of the A roads in Zone 3 of the Great Britain numbering scheme, A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea, London, Chelsea. It ...
in 1649, after being captured by
parliamentarians during the
English Civil War
The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...
and
tried for treason.
In England, a
bearded axe was used for beheading, with the blade's edge extending downwards from the tip of the shaft.
Celts
The
Celts
The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...
of western Europe long pursued a
"cult of the severed head", as evidenced by both Classical literary descriptions and archaeological contexts. This cult played a central role in their temples and religious practices and earned them a reputation as
head hunters
''Head Hunters'' is the twelfth studio album by American pianist, keyboardist and composer Herbie Hancock, released October 26, 1973, on Columbia Records. Recording sessions for the album took place in the evening at Wally Heider Studios and D ...
among the Mediterranean peoples.
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily (; 1st century BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek historian from Sicily. He is known for writing the monumental Universal history (genre), universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty ...
, in his 1st-century ''
Historical Library
''Bibliotheca historica'' (, ) is a work of universal history by Diodorus Siculus. It consisted of forty books, which were divided into three sections. The first six books are geographical in theme, and describe the history and culture of Egypt ...
'' (5.29.4) wrote the following about Celtic head-hunting:
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.
According to
Paul Jacobsthal
Paul Jacobsthal (23 February 1880 in Berlin – 27 October 1957 in Oxford) was a scholar of Greek vase painting and Celtic art. He wrote his dissertation at the University of Bonn under the supervision of Georg Loeschcke. In 1912 he published ...
, "Amongst the Celts the
human head
In human anatomy, the head is at the top of the human body. It supports the face and is maintained by the human skull, skull, which itself encloses the human brain, brain.
Structure
The human head consists of a fleshy outer portion, which s ...
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." 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
The Green Knight (, , ) is a heroic character of the Matter of Britain, originating in the 14th-century poem '' Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'' and the related medieval work '' The Greene Knight''. His true name is revealed to be Bertilak de ...
picks up his own severed head after Gawain has struck it off in a
beheading game
The beheading game is a literary Trope (literature), trope found in Irish mythology and medieval chivalric romance. The trope consists of a stranger who arrives at a royal court and challenges a hero to an exchange of blows: the hero may decapit ...
, just as
Saint Denis carried his head to the top of
Montmartre
Montmartre ( , , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement of Paris, 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Rive Droite, Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for its a ...
.
[Wilhelm, James J. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." The Romance of Arthur. Ed. Wilhelm, James J. New York: Garland Publishing, 1994. 399–465.]
A further example of this regeneration after beheading lies in the tales of
Connemara
Connemara ( ; ) is a region on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of western County Galway, in the west of Ireland. The area has a strong association with traditional Irish culture and contains much of the Connacht Irish-speaking Gaeltacht, ...
's
Saint Féchín, who after being beheaded by
Vikings
Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden),
who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...
carried his head to the Holy Well on
Omey Island
Omey Island () is a tidal island situated near Claddaghduff on the western edge of Connemara in County Galway, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. From the mainland the island is almost hidden. It is possible to drive or walk across a large sandy str ...
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.]
Classical antiquity

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
Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the condemned is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross, beam or stake and left to hang until eventual death. It was used as a punishment by the Achaemenid Empire, Persians, Ancient Carthag ...
. In the
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establis ...
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
Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (, ; 138–78 BC), commonly known as Sulla, was a Roman people, Roman general and statesman of the late Roman Republic. A great commander and ruthless politician, Sulla used violence to advance his career and his co ...
—to be publicly displayed on the
Rostra
The Rostra () was a large platform built in the city of Rome that stood during the republican and imperial periods. Speakers would stand on the rostra and face the north side of the Comitium towards the senate house and deliver orations to t ...
in the
Forum Romanum
A forum (Latin: ''forum'', "public place outdoors", : ''fora''; English : either ''fora'' or ''forums'') was a public square in a municipium, or any civitas, of Ancient Rome reserved primarily for the vending of goods; i.e., a marketplace, along ...
after execution. Perhaps the most famous beheading was that of
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...
who, on instructions from
Mark Antony
Marcus Antonius (14 January 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman people, Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the Crisis of the Roman Republic, transformation of the Roman Republic ...
, had his hands (which had penned the ''
Philippicae
The ''Philippics'' () are a series of 14 speeches composed by Cicero in 44 and 43 BC, condemning Mark Antony. Cicero likened these speeches to those of Demosthenes against Philip II of Macedon; both Demosthenes' and Cicero's speeches became ...
'' against Antony) and his head cut off and nailed up for display in this manner.
France
In France, until the
abolition of capital punishment in 1981, the main method of execution had been by beheading by means of the
guillotine
A guillotine ( ) is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by Decapitation, beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secur ...
. Other than a small number of military cases in which a firing squad was used (including that of
Jean Bastien-Thiry
Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry (19 October 1927 – 11 March 1963) was a French Air Force lieutenant colonel, military air-weaponry engineer and the creator of the Nord SS.10/SS.11 missiles. Bastien-Thiry attempted to assassinate French president Char ...
), the guillotine was the only legal method of execution from 1791, when it was introduced by the Legislative Assembly (France), 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. Throughout its extensive overseas France, overseas colonies and dependencies, the device was also used, including on St Pierre and Miquelon, St Pierre in 1889 and on Martinique as late as 1965.
Germany
* 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, Hamburg, Altona, Bruno Tesch (antifascist), Bruno Tesch and three others were beheaded. These were the first executions in
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
. The executions concerned the Altona Bloody Sunday (''Altonaer Blutsonntag'') riot, an Sturmabteilung, SA march on 17 July 1932 that turned violent and led to 18 people being shot dead.
* 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
Hans Fritz Scholl (; 22 September 1918 – 22 February 1943) was, along with Alexander Schmorell, one of the two founding members of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany. The principal author of the resistance movement's ...
, Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst of the
White Rose
The White Rose (, ) was a Nonviolence, non-violent, intellectual German resistance to Nazism, resistance group in Nazi Germany which was led by five students and one professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, University of Munich ...
protest movement, were all beheaded by the Nazi Germany, Nazi State. Four other members of the
White Rose
The White Rose (, ) was a Nonviolence, non-violent, intellectual German resistance to Nazism, resistance group in Nazi Germany which was led by five students and one professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, University of Munich ...
, an anti-Nazi group, were also executed by the People's Court (Germany), People's Court later that same year. The anti-Nazi Helmuth Hübener was also decapitated by People's Court order.
* 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.
Nordic countries
In Nordic countries, decapitation was the usual means of carrying out capital punishment. Noblemen were beheaded with a
sword
A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...
, and commoners with an
axe
An axe (; sometimes spelled ax in American English; American and British English spelling differences#Miscellaneous spelling differences, see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for thousands of years to shape, split, a ...
. 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.
Spain
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.
Middle East
Iran
Iran, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has alleged it uses beheading as one of the methods of punishment.
Iraq
Though not officially sanctioned, legal beheadings were carried out against at least 50 prostitutes and pimps under Saddam Hussein as late as 2000.
Beheadings have emerged as another terrorism, terror tactic especially in Iraq since 2003. 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 beheading video, beheadings are videotaped and made available on the Internet. One of the most publicized of such executions was that of Nick Berg.
Judicial execution is practiced in Iraq, but is generally carried out by
hanging
Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...
.
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
are punishable by beheading.
It is usually carried out Public execution, 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. 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.
According to Amnesty International, at least 79 people were executed in Saudi Arabia in 2013.
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.
Syria
The Syrian government employs hanging as Capital punishment in Syria, 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. Syrian rebels attempting to overthrow the Syrian government have been implicated in beheadings too.
North America
Mexico

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, Ignacio Allende, José Mariano Jiménez and Juan Aldama were tried for treason, executed by
firing squad
Firing may refer to:
* Dismissal (employment), sudden loss of employment by termination
* Firemaking, the act of starting a fire
* Burning; see combustion
* Shooting, specifically the discharge of firearms
* Execution by firing squad, a method of ...
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.
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, School of the Americas'', in enhanced interrogation techniques, torture techniques and psychological warfare.
United States
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.
During the Vietnam War, as a terror tactic, "some American troops hacked the heads off... dead [Vietnamese] and mounted them on pikes or poles". 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".
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."
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.
Notable people who have been beheaded
See also
* Atlanto-occipital dislocation, where the human skull, skull is dislodged from the Vertebral column, 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
References
External links
*
Crime Library(archived)
{{Capital punishment
Decapitation,
Capital punishment
Causes of death
Execution methods