The Universal Symbol of the Hand

Across History and CultureThe Universal Symbol of the Hand

1Entrance to Cave where Cave Paintings were discovered

Similar caves are located in Chavet and Lascaux in Southern France and Altamira in Northern Spain Paintings in Europe

10,000 to 35,000 years ago

Late Pleistocene epoch

Done by accomplished shaman artists

Some done by teenage male artists - graffiti artists

artists chewed up a piece of red ochre, placed their hand on the wall and spit over their hand

3

Cuevas de las Manos(Spanish for Cave of the Hands) Located in the Santa Cruz Provence in Argentina in South America

Dated around 550 BC

Mostly left hands

The painters held the spraying pipe with their right hand

The size of the hands resembles that of a 13-year-old boy, though possibly a few years older

Marked their right of passage into manhood by stamping their hands on the walls of this sacred cave

Gua TewetThe Tree of Life

Located in the rain forest of eastern Borneo, Indonesia

Dated back to more than 10,000 years ago

Stenciled hands were decorated with dots, dashes, and other patterns

Perhaps related to prehistoric Aboriginal art in Australia.

The design may symbolize ties that connect individuals, families, territories, or spirits to each other."

Traditional Aboriginal PaintingTraditional techniques:blowing a fine spray from the mouth to produce stencils (silhouettes) brushing the pigment using a fine stick, crushed stick or hair brushapplying the paint using fingers and hands - for example in body painting.

Stencil images are some of the oldest painted images known from the Australian continent.

Stencil images are a common form of rock art

Often of hands or arms, animal tracks, boomerangs, spear throwers or other tools such as stone axes. The Anasazi Cave Paintings Navajo for The Ancient OnesDated 1100 B.C. to 800 A.D. Located in San Juan County, Utah

Colorado Plateau - hundreds of handprints: painted hands, carved hands, handprints stamped with images and negative handprints.

Spitting or blowing a white calcite substance over a hand placed on the cliff wall created these negative image handprints.

Located above a cliff dwelling.

What do these prints mean?

Pueblo Indians left handprints at sacred places where they prayed

Believed that supernatural beings would identify a person by his handprint.

The Hand of Fatima Hamsa Hand

The fear of the evil eye has been ongoing since prehistoric times.

A universal symbol for protection to ward off negative energies became an eye placed in the palm of a hand.

In the Islam culture this was called the Hand of Fatima, or the Hamsa Hand.

Fatima is the Prophet Muhammads daughter

The Jews refer to it as Miriams hand

It is a sort of protection of the hand or The hand of God.

The five fingers have different meanings:

The Five Pillars of Islam The five books of the Torah to Jews The five fingers of the Hamsa represent our five limbs, arms, legs, and head, the power of the enlightened being.

In recent years, several peace activists in the Middle East, have chosen to wear the hand as a symbol of resistance. The Hamsa Hand illustrates the similarities between the Jewish and Islamic tradition.

Hindu Images the Evil Eye

Images of the Hand of Fatima and Miriam

Images of Henna Designs

Additional Images

http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/methods/methods.php

http://joyrb.hubpages.com/hub/The-Hamsa-Hand-Symbol---Its-History-and-Use-in-Jewelry-and-Art

http://www.livescience.com/7028-ancient-cave-art-full-teenage graffiti.html

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/features/world/asia/indonesia/cave-art-text http://scholarspacue.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10125/17232/AP-v44n1-219-230.pdf?seqence=1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Pueblo_Peoples Bibliography