What is Ouroboros?
[[File:Serpiente alquimica.jpg|thumb|right|Drawing in a 1478 copy of a lost [[alchemy|alchemical]] tract]] [[File:Erlangen Neustädter Friedhof 018.JPG|thumb|A grave sculpture in [[Erlangen]]]] The '''ouroboros''' or '''oroboros''' is an ancient [[symbol]] of a [[snake |serpent]] or [[dragon]] [[self-cannibalism|eating its own tail]]. The ouroboros is a symbol of an everlasting [[cycle]] or a cycle of life, death, and rebirth. The ouroboros [[symbol|symbolizes]] [[eternity]] or [[eternal return|cyclicality]].<ref>{{cite web| last1=Soto-Andrade| first1=Jorge| last2=Jaramillo| first2=Sebastian| last3=Gutierrez| first3=Claudio| last4=Letelier| first4=Juan-Carlos| title=Ouroboros avatars: A mathematical exploration of self-reference and metabolic closure| url=https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/alife/0262297140chap115.pdf| publisher=MIT Press| access-date=16 May 2015| archive-date=30 August 2017| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170830063426/https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/alife/0262297140chap115.pdf| url-status=dead}}</ref> It is the sense of something constantly re-creating itself. Like the [[Phoenix (mythology)|phoenix]], it symbolises cycles that begin again as soon as they end. The first known appearance of the ouroboros motif is in [[KV62]], the [[tomb]] of [[Tutankhamun]], in the 14th century [[BC]]. The text is about the god [[Ra]] and his union with [[Osiris]] in the [[Duat|underworld]]. In an illustration, two serpents, with their tails in their mouths, coil around the head and feet of an enormous god (this the unified Ra-Osiris). The whole figure represents the beginning and the end of time.<ref>Hornung, Erik 1999. ''The Ancient Egyptian books of the afterlife''. Cornell University Press, 38; 77–78.</ref> == References == {{reflist}} [[Category:Symbols]] [[Category:Mythology]]