Burning at the stake

Deliberately causing death through the effects of combustion, or effects of exposure to extreme heat, has a long history as a form of painful capital punishment. Many societies have employed it as an execution method for activities considered criminal such as treason, rebellious actions by slaves, heresy, witchcraft and sexual transgressions, such as incest or homosexuality. The best known type of executions of death by burning is when the condemned is bound to a large wooden stake (this is usually called burning at the stake, or in some cases, auto-da-fé), but other forms of death resulting from exposure to extreme heat are known. For example, pouring substances such as molten metal onto a person (or down their throat or into their ears), as well as enclosing persons within, or attaching them to, metal contraptions subsequently heated. Immersion in a heated liquid as a form of execution is considered distinct from death by burning, and classified as death by boiling.

For burnings at the stake, if the fire was large (for instance, when a number of prisoners were executed at the same time), death often came from carbon monoxide poisoning before flames actually caused lethal harm to the body. If the fire was small, however, the condemned would burn for some time until death from hypovolemia (the loss of blood and/or fluids, since extensive burns often require large amounts of intravenous fluid, because the subsequent inflammatory response causes significant capillary fluid leakage and oedema), heatstroke and/or simply the thermal decomposition of vital body parts.

The 18th century BC law code promulgated by Babylonian king Hammurabi specifies several crimes in which death by burning was thought appropriate. Looters of houses on fire could be cast into the flames, and priestesses who abandoned cloisters and began frequenting inns and taverns could also be punished by being burnt alive. Furthermore, a man who began committing incest with his mother after the death of his father could be ordered by courts to be burned alive.

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