Startling photo shows brutal capital punishment method in Mongolia

A harrowing old photo shows a method of capital punishment that was once used in Mongolia.

When it comes to capital punishment and execution, people around the world have devised many unpleasant ways to punish and kill each other.

There are the common (more medieval) methods of death, such as hanging, as well as more modern ones such as lethal injection.

Historically, there have been several rather more unpleasant methods as well, with some faster than others. For instance, beheading is a terrifying thought, but it would at least be over relatively quickly.

There have been many gristly forms of punishment and execution throughout human history. (CARL COURT/AFP via Getty Images)

England's practice of hanging, drawing and quartering, however, was something else entirely.

This consisted of hanging someone until they were semi-conscious (hanging), then slicing them open, ripping out their guts and burning the entrails in front of them (drawing), then finally cutting them into four pieces (quartering).

England is far from the only place to administer some thoroughly unpleasant forms of punishment and execution though, as a photo from Mongolia dated to around 1913 shows.

The image shows a woman reaching out of a small hole in a wooden crate that she has been locked inside.

This was a particularly cruel punishment method used for a variety of crimes.

The chilling image was taken in 1913. (Getty Images/Pictures from History)

The prisoner would be locked inside a wooden box scarcely larger than a coffin and simply left there all alone. There was a small hole in the side which was large enough to reach out of, and the prisoner was occasionally brought food and water.

Sometimes prisoners would be left in the coffin for days, months, or sometimes years, and sometimes until they died of starvation, dehydration, or disease.

When left for long periods, prisoners who survived the ordeal might lose the use of their legs as their muscles would have wasted away due to a combination of starvation and lack of use.

The shocking image was captured by Stéphane Passet in 1913, and it was claimed that the woman had been punished in this way for committing adultery.

Despite the horrifying sight, Passet did not intervene and left the woman as he had found her.

A group of Mongols, dated to 1902. (Print Collector/Getty Images)

It has been suggested that the practice originated when Mongolia was under the rule of the Qing Dynasty.

This lasted from 1635 up to 1911, when Outer Mongolia declared its independence from Qing China, with the Qing Dynasty then collapsing in 1912.

While Outer Mongolia is now what we would think of as Mongolia, Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region in the People's Republic of China, the same level of province as Tibet and Xinjiang.

Mongolia finally abolished capital punishment in 2016. The practice of immurement, or entombment as seen in the picture, was used until the early 20th century after which it was replaced by shooting.