Black and white drawing of an ornate hamsa hand with an eye at its centre, filled with filigree and floral patterning, shown as a design with no body placement.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate hamsa hand design in black

Blackwork · Black and grey · Flash

A symmetrical hamsa hand with five fingers, drawn in solid black outline on a white background. The palm and fingers are filled with dense filigree, scrollwork, petal shapes and a stylised eye at the centre. The design is entirely black linework and solid fills, with no shading or grey tones.

Blackwork Hamsa Hand Eye Filigree Scrollwork Floral pattern

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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

Dear Hamid, the scribes here have finished the new ledger for the Sultan's granary, and the Vizier wants it sealed before the caravans leave for the salt towns. I am writing this by the north window because the lamp oil has run thin and I would rather spend the last of it on words than on figures. You will laugh, but I have been painting the little hand again, the one you said looked like a sleeping flower with too many petals. I gave it five fingers this time and filled every one with scrolling vine until my brush nearly gave up. The palace eye sits in the centre of the palm, the one the old woman at the well swears keeps the dust out of the bread.

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The Vizier came by yesterday, stood over my desk with his hands behind his back, and asked what I was doing with the margins. I told him the margins were where the trouble hides, and he grunted and left me alone. Later I saw him at the gate, touching his own palm to the stone pillar before he rode out, and I understood that he had seen my drawing on the spare sheet and remembered it.

So keep the blue ink for the caravan seals and send me a fresh quill when the boats come up river. I have hidden the hand inside the back cover of the ledger, where nobody counts. If the salt towns ever ask who made the decorations on the Sultan's records, tell them a copyist with ink under his nails did it, and that he is still here, still steady, still waiting for your next letter.