The 10 Most Horrific Execution Methods Throughout History

Published February 4, 2016
Updated September 12, 2019

Whether involving rats, spikes, or boiling oil, the worst execution methods ever invented prove that humans have mastered the art of torture and death.

Worst Execution Methods

If the last few thousand years of human history have shown us to be good at one thing, it’s the art of inflicting painful, humiliating death on one another.

Whether using ravenous animals, scorching temperatures, or endless variations of sharp, pointed implements, the ingenuity that has gone into the act of death by torture is genuinely shocking. You’ll need a strong stomach to make it through this list of the worst execution methods ever used:

Worst Execution Methods: Boiling To Death

Man Boiling To Death

Wikimedia Commons

A slow and agonizing punishment, this method traditionally saw the victim gradually lowered — feet-first — into boiling oil, water, or wax (although uses of boiling wine and molten lead have also been recorded).

If the shock of the pain did not render them immediately unconscious, the person would experience the excruciating sensation of their outer layers of skin, utterly destroyed by immersion burns, dissolving right off their body, followed by the complete breakdown of the fatty tissue, boiling away beneath.

Martyr Burned In Oil

Wikimedia Commons

It seems safe to assume that such a horrendous fate, one of the worst execution methods ever devised, would be reserved for the foulest of murderers, but historical documents refute this.

Emperor Nero is said to have dispatched thousands of Christians in this manner, while in the Middle Ages, the main recipients of the punishment were not killers or rapists but coin forgers, particularly in Germany and the Holy Roman Empire. In Britain, meanwhile, King Henry VIII introduced the practice for executing those who used poison to commit murder.

Shockingly, the practice is believed to have been carried out as recently as 2002, when the government of Uzbekistan, led by Islam Karimov, was alleged to have tortured several suspected terrorists to death in this manner.

author
All That's Interesting
author
A New York-based publisher established in 2010, All That's Interesting brings together subject-level experts in history, true crime, and science to share stories that illuminate our world.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.