Execution by elephants
Execution by elephants refers to the execution of people with the help of elephants , a thousands of years old common punishment for serious crimes in South and Southeast Asia, especially India. Similar to the use of horses to divide into four , the elephants were usually specially trained not only to brutally trample their victims but also to torture them in a targeted manner, e.g. B. by crushing or tearing off individual limbs.
This method was used more by the nobility, control over the animals was at the same time an expression of the power of the rulers.
For the first Europeans who came into contact with this method, it was extremely unusual, so that it found its way into many contemporary journals and reports on life in Asia. This form of punishment slowly disappeared in the 18th and 19th centuries, probably in the course of the European colonization of the Asian regions.
