Execution by cannon in Shiraz, Iran, circa 1890s.

Execution by cannon in Shiraz, Iran, circa 1890s.

The prisoner is generally tied to a gun with the upper part of the small of his back resting against the muzzle. 

When the gun is fired, his head is seen to go straight up into the air some forty or fifty feet; the arms fly off right and left, high up in the air, and fall at, perhaps, a hundred yards distance; the legs drop to the ground beneath the muzzle of the gun; and the body is literally blown away altogether.

"Blown from a gun" was a punishment often used by colonial powers against locals who believed their body parts must be together to enter the afterlife. It was reserved as a special punishment when just death wasn't enough. Local feral dogs would usually eat the pieces of the dead that could be found.

This photograph depicts the dreaded method of execution formally used in several parts of the world: death by cannon. Shiraz, modern day Iran. Circa 1890s. 

This method of execution was used ever since at least the early 16th century, as to be honest it was really only a matter of time before someone got the idea to strap a convict to the front of a cannon for executions. 

The Mughal Empire used this type of execution in some of this method's earliest known accounts, and the Portuguese also used this in Brazil, Mozambique and parts of modern day Sri Lanka for executions in both the 16th and 17th centuries.

 Even the British Empire used this as a method of execution in India mostly in the later half of the 18th century, in particular as a unique punishment for native soldiers found guilty of mutiny or desertion. 

Death by cannon was also known for its serious risks, as most notably at Firozpur in 1857 there was an order for blank cartridges to be used for a mass execution, but grapeshot was mistakingly loaded inside the cannons that were to be used.

 As a result, the grapeshot went right through the now-executed convicts and straight into a large group of spectators, causing a sizeable number of deaths and many needing limbs amputated. 

This brutal method of execution has thankfully disappeared by the 21st century, and the very last known case of death by cannon in history occurred in Afghanistan in April of 1930, when eleven convicts were executed in Kabul.

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