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.
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