The Hamsa Hand is an ancient Middle Eastern talisman that can be traced back to the civilization of Phoenicia, where it represented Tanit, patron goddess of their capital city Carthage, and to Mesopotamia where it represented the goddess Ishtar or Inanna. It is a protective sign in many faiths, warding off evil, or bringing happiness, luck, health, and good fortune. The symbol is worn by both women and men, and is generally considered to have a feminine protective basis. Many versions include the all-seeing eye. The hamsa hand has a wide variety of different spellings including hamesh, hamsa, chamsa, and khamsa, and variations are called the Hand of God, the Hand of Miriam, the Hand of Mary, or the Hand of Fatima. In recent years, this has become a symbol of the common ground and common origins shared by the Jewish, Islamic and Christian faiths.
Technically, the hand with spiral that we added to this section, and the TierraCast Blossom hands are not Hamsa hands ... but they are kind of cousins and we thought the other hands wouldn't mind sharing space with them.
