page_title: Petrosomatoglyph
section_title: Hands and arms
hierarchical_section_title: Petrosomatoglyph / Human petrosomatoglyphs / Hands and arms
caption_attribution_description: English: Petroglyphs of handprints. Church of st Faustina and Liberata, Capo di Ponte, Italy English: Petroglifi di mani. Chiesa delle Sante Faustina e Liberata, Capo di Ponte, Italia
context_page_description: A petrosomatoglyph is a supposed image of parts of a human or animal body in rock.
  They occur all over the world, often functioning as an important form of symbolism, used in religious and secular ceremonies, such as the crowning of kings. Some are regarded as artefacts linked to saints or culture heroes.
  The word comes from the Greek πέτρα – petra, σῶμα – soma, and γλύφειν – glyphein. Feet are the most common; however, knees, elbows, hands, head, fingers, etc., are also found.
  Stylised representations of parts of the body are often open to dispute and are therefore on the fringes of acceptability as identifiable petrosomatoglyphs. Natural objects, such as rock crystals and rock formations which look like petrosomatoglyphs, whole animals, plants, etc., are collectively called "mimeoliths".
context_section_description: A diminutive pair of hands are carved on a boulder beside the Crinan Canal in Argyll. The St. Victor's Petroglyphs Provincial Park, in Saskatchewan, Canada, feature hand-prints. From Waldenbuch in Germany is a four-sided stone pillar with scroll carving and a left arm and hand. At Oberhasli on the road to Gadmen near Meiringen in Switzerland is the Sterbensstein, a rock with the impression of a hand and several fingers left by a dying man after he had been attacked. Near Minden in the Geismarwald on the Totenberg in Germany, an army leader who before a battle in the Thirty Years' War declared that he had as much chance of winning as he had of the stone becoming soft. It did, and his foot- and hand-prints are still there to be seen by all.
  A carved left hand is to be found on the wall of the Decorated Hall in the Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni on Malta. It measures 8¼" by 4". At Arthur's Stone chambered tomb in Hereford and Worcester is a "cup mark" stone which bears the imprints of a king's or giant's elbow, left behind after he fell dead to the ground, killed by King Arthur. The Petroglyph National Monument has an estimated 20,000 carved images, including many of hands. These images are inseparable from the cultural landscape, the spirits of the people who created and who appreciate them. At Barnakill near Dunardy in Argyll is a stone bearing two hand prints. The hands appear to have a covering; one may be the back of the hand having interesting designs, the other being the palm with some faint markings.
  At Llanllyfni in Wales is the thumb print of St. Gredfyw. Near Strathpeffer in Scotland is the finger and thumb print of a dwarf associate of Finn Mac Cuill on an old gate post near to the Pictish Eagle Stone.
  In Argyll and Bute, Kilneuair's kirk has inside, to the east of the nave door, a sandstone block bearing a now almost invisible five-toed print with nails on three of the toes and which is referred to as 'the Devil's hand'. The story goes that a local tailor did not believe in the Devil and Old Nick appeared as a skeleton just missing the man and scratching the wall with his bone hand.
caption: Couples of handprints in the church of S. Faustina and Liberata, Capo di Ponte (Italy)
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