ANCIENT EGYPTIANS

The ancient Egyptians were a North-African people, who occupied the present Egypt; the Egyptian civilization started in the IV millennium B.C. and ended in the IV century A.D. due to the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great and the admission to the Persian Empire.

Among ancient Egyptians, death penalty is applied for those who break Maat, the universal Law strictly observed in Egypt. This law includes crimes such as murder, theft, sacrilege, attempt on Pharaon (seen as a guarantor of the Law) and spying. There is no arbitraries, judgments are equal for everyone, the rich and the poor, the noble and the meek; or at least, it should be so.
Death penalty is applied through beheading, sacrifice, or drowning in the Nile in a close sack.

Pre-Columbian peoples (Maya, Aztecans, and Incas) were original of central America; there are still now few Maya communities in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Salvador. These communities started developing in the XVI century B.C. and finished in the XVII century A.D., when they were destroyed by the Spanish.

In pre-Columbian communities were no prisons; the robbery was punished with slavery and the murder with death, if the culprit couldn't indemnify the victims; the moral code didn't differentiate between intentional and unintentional murder. Also the adultery, considerate a crime against the ownership, was punished with the death: the culprit was consigned to the injured his band, who would kill him throwing a big stone on his head.