And since, it was used in all sorts of magical text and black magic, up to the 1800s. In the Chrysopheia alchemical text, the ouroboros symbol was used to depict the interconnectedness of the cosmos, with a scripture in it saying “All is One”. When the Greeks discovered the Egyptian tail-eating-snake iconography, they incorporated it into their magical and alchemical text. The name Ouroboros was given by the Greeks and roughly means TAIL-DEVOURING
The ancient Egyptians called theirs sd-m-r3 (tail in mouth)
And once he lets go of it, the world would collapse and everything would be wiped out, to renew once again by the repopulation from a couple of survivors. It was monstrous and encircled the entire globe with its tail in his mouth. Norse Mythology Uses Snake to Convey Order in the WorldĪ Norse mythology also used the snake to convey an ordered world… The encapsulating snake acts as the membrane of the cosmos symbolizing the furthest limit of the ordered world within the vast abyss of formlessness. The outward expansion from the point was symbolized by a great spiralling serpent, called Mehen (which means ‘coiled one’). Very similar to the Yin Yang creation theory and today’s popular big bang theory. Its expansion characterized by a great burst, would create the cosmos, a progressive differentiation of the divine substance. One of the Egyptian creation myths tells how the world was conceived from a divine point, or an Atum, appearing in a formless abyss. Shrine enclosing the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun. Its shape also varied depending on what it was englobing. At times, the tail was near the mouth, and at others, it was overlapping the head. In others, it was used as a protective enclosure of the God or individual, a deceased, the sun, or the cosmos.Īlso, the Egyptian snake didn’t necessarily eat its tail. In some cases, it could denote the recurring solar year. The earliest record of the Ouroboros iconography was found in the Enigmatic Book of the Netherworld, an ancient Egyptian funerary text dating back to around 1600 BCĪnd according to the Academic Dana Micheal Reemes, to the ancient Egyptians, the Ouroboros image was never a unique symbol with an idea attached to it, but rather a part of their language a variant amongst related images, that conveyed different things depending on the context. It has been given various meanings throughout history but 3 most recurring concepts are : The Ouroboros can vary in shape and style but generally, it’s characterized as a serpent (or dragon) eating its own tail, creating a circular shape. Nevertheless, the symbol can still be found today, on tombstones and cemeteries, buildings, churches, coat of arms, or insignias. People who are familiar with it ‘usually’ have an interest in the occult, mythological symbolism, or archetypal psychology. The Ouroboros symbol is not as mainstream as the Yin Yang or the Cross. We’ll be discussing more on that and how the ouroboros model governs the cosmos (existence), from microscopic to macroscopic entities, but first, let’s discuss the origins, usage and meanings of this rather inconspicuous symbol. That was just one representation of the Ouroboros.
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