The term "death by sawing" indicates the act of sawing a living person in half. Most often the victim was suspended upside down, most of the blood will go to the head. The torturers would saw into the victim's crotch, all of the blood in the head will oxygenate the brain so that the victim will not pass out as one normally would under such excruciating pain. Typically, the saw would reach the victim's navel before unconsciousness would take hold, sometimes as far as the midriff.

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Medieval Execution, Death by Sawing, 1474

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Keywords: 1470s, 1474, 15th, act, ages, bw, century, cruelty, death, execute, history, illustration, infamous, living, man, medieval, middles, persecution, person, prisoner, punishment, sawing, sentence, suffering, suspended, term, torture, upside, victim, woodcut