Ouroboros

The Serpent of Eternity

First attested
1323 BCEEnigmatic Book of the Netherworld, on the gilded shrines of Tutankhamun

The end feeds the beginning: nothing is lost, only transformed — or nothing ever escapes the loop.

The Ouroboros is a primordial archetype found in ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Pagan traditions. By consuming its own tail, the serpent forms a perfect circle, illustrating the concept that the end is always the beginning. It embodies the cyclical nature of the universe—creation emerging from destruction, and life renewing itself through death. In alchemy, it represents the unification of opposites (the conscious and unconscious) and the eternal transmutation of energy and matter.

Light

Signifies wholeness, infinite potential, self-sufficiency, and the comforting knowledge that energy is never lost, only transformed.

Shadow

Can denote a state of stagnation, self-consumption, or being trapped in a closed loop of self-destructive behaviors.

Sources and verification1 source · 1 link

Scholarship

  • Alexandre Piankoff, The Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 1955, Bollingen Series XL.2The earliest known depiction, on the second gilded shrine, c. 1323 BCE

Linked entries

  • Received fromHermes TrismegistusTraditional

    The Greco-Egyptian alchemical writings that carry the ouroboros come from the same Roman-era Alexandria as the Hermetica, and later alchemists named Hermes as founder of their art; the ouroboros itself is far older, appearing on Tutankhamun's shrines about 1323 BC.

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