What is the origin of the handshake?

Question

What is the origin of the handshake?

Answer 1

heck if I care.

Answer 2

People would offer their right hands to each other to show that they weren't brandishing a weapon.

Answer 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handshake

may have the answer.

Its origins are unclear, although Philip A. Busterson's seminal 1978 work Social Rituals of the British traces its roots back to Sir Walter Raleigh, claiming he introduced the custom into the British Court during the late 16th Century.

Answer 4

The original handshake actually gripped the forearm.  It was a way to make sure there were no knives concealed in the toga sleeve of the person you were meeting.

Answer 5

THE ORIGIN OF THE HANDSHAKE. In its oldest form the handshake signified the handing of power from a god to an early ruler. This is reflected in the Egyptian verb “to give,” the hieroglyph for which is an extended hand. Then a ritual in Babylonia around 1800 BC required that the king grasp the hands of a statue every year during a New Years festival, transferring authority for another year. The ceremony was so popular that when the Assyrians defeated and occupied Babylonia, the subsequent Assyrian kings adopted the ritual in case they offended the gods. It is this aspect of the handshake that Michelangelo so magnificently painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Folklore offers another explanation – if a villager met a man he didn’t recognise and reacted by reaching for his dagger. The stranger did likewise and they cautiously circled each other. When it was decided that the meeting would not be a fight to the death, daggers were reinserted and the weapon hands were extended as a token of goodwill. This also explains why women, not traditionally allowed to carry weapons, never developed the custom of shaking hands

Answer 6

France, to show that you were not holding a gun OR weapon

Answer 7

It dates back to medieval times, it was a way to show the other person that you weren't hiding weapons up your sleeve.

Answer 8

People shook hands to prove they weren't carrying weapons when they met. The salute comes from when people would raise their visors to show their face to prove they weren't an adversary.