Black and grey hamsa hand tattoo with filigree scrollwork and flourishes across the ribs below the bust, on a torso with a hand lifting a black top.

Hamsa hand with swirls on the ribs

Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A filled hamsa hand sits centrally beneath the bust, decorated with fine scrollwork, dots and a heart-shaped motif within the palm. Two sweeping flourishes with curled tendrils extend outwards to either side along the ribcage. The linework is crisp and the shading is light grey and black, with no colour ink, and the photograph is taken straight on with the wearer's hand lifting the top.

Ribs Hamsa Hand Filigree Swirl Scrollwork Flourish Heart Dot

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You reach the Coll Estrecho before the snow does, the mule Pilar plodding behind you while the cold already bites through your gloves. The silversmith in Ardal pressed the charm into your palm the night before: a flat hand of worked silver, its surface crowded with tiny curls, a heart pierced through the middle. "For the high places," she said, and tied it to Pilar's bridle without asking whether you believed her.

Keep reading

The track narrows to a ledge where the wind funnels hard. Pilar stops, ears flat, and you see why. A rockfall has swallowed the path, and the gap below is nothing but grey air. You count the dots on the silver, as you have all week, one for every stone you have set down safely. Ten. Twelve. Your fingers are too stiff to work the buckle, so you talk to the animal instead, low and steady, the way your grandmother talked to horses on the far side of the range.

Pilar steps across first. Then you follow, one boot after another, testing each shelf of slate before you trust it with your weight. On the other side the wind drops all at once, and the valley opens below like a lamp turned up, villages strung along the river like beads on a wire.

At the cairn you unclip the charm and turn it so the heart faces the sun. You leave it hanging from a nail in the stones, as the silversmith said you should, and you walk down with nothing in your hands but the reins.