We'd like to use analytics cookies to understand which symbols people look up, so we know what to research next. They are not used for advertising and we set none of them unless you say yes. What we store.
Two hands joined in a handshake, carved on a monument.
Also known as: Handshake gravestone motif, Joined hands, Two hands shaking on a grave
Two clasped hands. The commonest reading is farewell or reunion in the next life — but the cuffs are the thing to look at: matching cuffs suggest a farewell between equals, and a man's and a woman's cuff on a shared stone suggests a marriage.
Two right hands clasped in a handshake, carved on monuments across Britain and North America chiefly in the nineteenth century.
19th century especially · Contexts: History
Commonly read as a farewell, or as a reunion of the deceased with those gone before. Both readings circulate and neither is documented from the people who commissioned the stones.
Two competing standard readings, neither established.
The carved cuffs carry more reliable information than the gesture: a feminine cuff clasping a masculine one on a shared monument conventionally indicates a married couple, while two identical cuffs suggest a farewell between equals or fellow members of a society.
Also the emblem of several friendly societies and fraternal orders, notably the Odd Fellows, where clasped hands appear alongside the order's other devices rather than alone.
Two hands gripped in a handshake shown from the side, each emerging from a carved cuff at the wrist.
Clasped hands are gripped in a handshake; praying hands are pressed palm to palm. Popular guides conflate them constantly.
Clasped hands appear with the three links in Odd Fellows monuments.