Author(s):
Neumann, Hans (Berlin)
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Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen)
[German version] I. Ancient Orient The death penalty as a sanction for capital offences is attested in the ancient Near East from the latter part of the 3rd millennium BC as a penalty in varying frequency in the respective statute books and (less often) as a sentence in documents of procedural law. Capital offences were, in particular, homicide/killing ( Killing, crimes involving), robbery, abduction, adultery, various cases of sodomy and incest and other statutory definitions of offences, principally those threatening the political or social order. Moreover, the death penalty was sometimes threatened as a substitute (in cases of theft and embezzlement, for instance) if the perpetrator proved unable to pay the fine. It is also found as a threatened penalty in contracts. In certain cases it is likely that the death penalty (acting as a deterrent) was replaced by monetary and other (compensatory/penalty) payments. The investigation of capital offences (and therefore imposing the death penalty) was usually subject to royal jurisdiction or was delegated to other institutions by the ruler. In what context the (public or private) death penalty was specifically enforced is unclear and controversial. The main methods of enforcement attested in Mesopotamia and Egypt are impaling, burning, drowning and b…