Suffocation in ash is a method ofcapital punishment in which the individual is suffocated by being in some way immersed into ash to causeasphyxiation.
Ctesias reports this method from ancientPersia, but modern historians doubt the use of this method due to the contested nature of Ctesias as an informant and the fact that it is not recorded in older Near Eastern traditions.[1]
According to Ctesias, in ancient Persia, there existed an execution method where a tower/room was filled with ash, into which the condemned person was plunged. Wheels were constantly turned while he was alive, making the ash whirl about, and the person died by gradual suffocation as he inhaled the ash.[2]The description can be found inValerius Maximus and2 Maccabees 13:5-8.[3][4]
Reputedly, the first to suffer this punishment wasSogdianus. He killed his half-brotherXerxes II around 423 BC. Another half-brother, Ochus (later calledDarius II) rebelled against him, and killed Sogdianus in this manner because he had promised Sogdianus he would not die by the sword, by poison or by hunger. At the instigation of his wifeParysatis, Darius II had his brother, Arsites, executed in the same manner for rebellion, along with Arsites' general Artyphius. Some time later, a rebelling general Pisuthnes met the same fate.[2]
In about 162 BC,Menelaus, Jewish high priest at Jerusalem was apparently put to death in this manner byLysias, regent forAntiochus V, on charges of rebellion.[4]
Nezahualcoyotl, a 15th-century,pre-Columbian, non-AztecAcolhuan ruler ofTexcoco in modernMexico, designed alaw code that is partially preserved. Those who had engaged in the active role ofhomosexualanal intercourse were suffocated in a heap of ash. Their passive partners hadtheir intestines pulled out, then their bodies were filled with ash, and finally, were burnt.[5]