Over the millennia, we have found oh so many ways to kill people, some pretty slick, some not so much. But the goals have been 1) Kill the victim (no wounding) and often 2) do it quickly and efficiently. Sometimes there is a third goal in there though: inflict as much pain and anguish along the way as possible.
Two methods are often misunderstood I think, crucifixion and hanging.
Crucifixion was a favored method of both execution as well as making public 'statements' to the public about required behavior w/in the Empire. But the actual method of death in not very well known; most people seem to think that the victim dies of either exposure (not likely in a warm, [not dry] Mediterranean area or blood loss from the wounds made as attachment points, also not the cause. The actual cause of death, while gruesome, is also interesting: the victim suffocates. It would seem that there is nothing impeding the breathing of the victim, that is exactly what happens: the diagram is not a very strong muscle but more than sufficient to expand and contract the torso of a mammal. But when a human is anchored to a flat member along his / her entire back, normal chest or abdomen expansion cannot happen without the front part of the body causing the lower body to be lifted on each inhale. So instead of merely expanding and contracting the abdomen, the diagram now has to lift a fairly heavy portion of the body on each breath and after some time, can no longer do so. So the oxygen levels in the victim drop, the victim loses consciousness but the breathing continues (it is an involuntary muscle movement) until the diaphragm simply cannot lift the lower body enough or at all and the victim suffocates.
Hanging becomes a little confusing because depending on circumstances, and the hangman's skill (or lack of skill) it can go one of two ways: breaking the victim' neck, well up on the spinal cord resulting in instantaneous unconsciousness and death following shortly (moments), or strangulation, which can and does easily last 5 minutes or more, all the while having the victim active and rather resisting the entire process from the end of the rope.
The correct way to hang someone is to snug the rope around the neck, put the noose connection to the side of the victim's head (never in the back), and drop the victim far enough to snap the spinal column WITHOUT ripping the head from the torso, which is considered VERY bad form! To achieve this, the victim is weighed, his / her physical condition evaluated, and the drop length and victim weight carefully calculated. The victim is also 'weighted' as needed to increase the body's weight, usually by attaching weights to the torso or legs. A successful hanging takes a skilled person to set it up, and for centuries, even through the 1950's, there were prized and very well know and respected hangmen in England, who would travel about to exercise their 'craft' as needed, and were well paid to do so.
Of course sometimes, the goal is NOT a quick, merciful death but a tortuous one. In those cases, the victim is not dropped very far at all, and even occasionally only lifted by the noose until his / her feet are just off the ground, at which point 'the dance' begins. It is believed this very thing happened after the Nuremberg trials in Germany in 1946 because many of those hanged were strangled, with reports claiming it took some of them up to 28 minutes to die.
And as a no- cost extra in this thread about nothing, the past tense of 'hang' varies depending on exactly what was..... hung or hanged. The rule is this: if it is an inanimate object, then it is 'hung'. But for any animate (read: living) thing, the word is 'hanged'. Which of course clearly shows that no one can be 'hung like a horse', including an actual horse, who would actually be 'hanged like a horse'..... though probably not fillies or mares.
Brian
