Ouroboros – Cosmic Serpent And The Self-Devourer – Universal, Powerful Symbol Of Great Antiquity

A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com - Widely known in many religions worldwide from Europe, Asia, and Africa, this mystical, very old symbol means "the end is the beginning." It has the ability to reproduce itself. It mates, impregnates, and destroys itself, and all this happens in the cycle of time.

An ouroboros in a 1478 drawing in an alchemical tract. Anonymous medieval illuminator. Image credit: uploader Carlos adanero - Public Domain

Artifacts in the form of bracelets with this symbol are found in areas occupied by the Slavs beginning with the first European Neolithic cultures. The ancient Greeks considered Ouroboros a serpent or a worm engulfing its tail and forming a circle with the beginning and the end.

The same was also an interpretation of the symbol in other cultures because Ouroboros' means always the same: an eternal cyclic force – both destructive and at the same time, crucial as a part of nature's process of regeneration.

Cosmic cycle - wheel appears half as light and half as darkness; in this form, it is Yang and Yin. Ouroboros means 'life conflict' when life passes and death comes. Still, the end also means the beginning.

It is also a union of opposites, Heaven and Earth working together and consistently in harmony.

Ancient engravings of Ouroboros, dated to the Chou dynasty in China (1200 BC), symbolize the continuity of life with the dragon biting his tail and in a mythical monster called the Midgard serpent—also known as Jormungand, encircled the world, biting its tail.

Engraving of a wyvern-type ouroboros by Lucas Jennis, in the 1625 alchemical tract De Lapide Philosophico. The figure serves as a symbol for Mercury. source

The circle is also a symbol of perfection like the halo that is drawn over the heads of the Byzantine images of the saints—believed to be inspired by the Milky Way and described in ancient writings as a luminous serpent (serpent of light) that dwells in high heavens. Ouroboros is associated with Hermetism alchemy. It speaks of purity, wholeness, and infinity. Gnostic belief "passes through all things" as the symbol of the inseparable, the "unchanging law" that applies to all things and connects between them.

Generally, the symbol's meaning remains the same – eternal cyclic force is both destructive and regenerative.

Hermes - the god of alchemy - defines the Ouroboros as: "Serpens cuius caudam devorabit, "a snake that devours its own tail, symbolizes the alchemical Mercury represents the cosmic unity and the circular nature of the work of the alchemist.

Ouroboros, which symbolizes the cyclical nature of the universe and a path to the sun, was already known to ancient Egyptians around 1600 BC. Still, it is likely to be even much older than this.

From there, knowledge about Ouroboros moved to the Phoenicians and to the Greeks and took a distinguished place in myths of Vikings (Norse,) Hindus, tribes of Central America, West Africa, Voodoo beliefs,

The Ouroboros concept appears elsewhere.

Updated on March 7, 2024

Written by – A. Sutherland AncientPages.com Staff Writer

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