no, they would lay on their stomach

yes

hm I thought the victim was faced down during beheadings.

There's different methods of Guillotine execution. They could be performed both ways around. I think it depended on the executioner or country or choice by guilty party or something. Most depictions I have seen has the person laying or kneeling face down.

'you're doing it wrong'

oh noes

It still sort of doesn't make sense as they have their face facing down not like forwards.

I can't really explain that comment

stomach...thats how they did it in france

back would be more scary, you'd see that blade comin' atchaaa.

I don't think that people would "get" this shirt if they did not see the title.

Course they would!

this is shirt is like glennz with dark humor -- very cool!

your thinking about this WAAAAYYYYY to much.

Beheadings by axe were always done from the back of the neck. Reason being that sometimes it took more than one wack which would make a painless and quick death by cutting the spinal cord 1st. Interesting side note: victims would often tip the axeman to insure that he would aim between the vertebrae making a quick death oppose to a slow painful death by chopping through the vertebrae with several wacks.

heh, i did a bit of research on this topic my sophomore year of high school when my group built an (almost) life size guillotine for a project. no, before you ask, the blade wasn't metal, it was painted wood, and there was something akin to a screw (don't remember exactly what) blocking the track, so people couldn't injure themselves. the reason why the victims usually faced downward is exactly as numby is saying, so that they would snap the spinal cord on the first try, whereas if they faced up, it led to a slower, more painful death due to asphyxiation if the blade didn't go all the way through on the first try. anyway, hope that helps clear things up!