Editing Ouroboros (section)

== Historical representations ==
[[File:Ägyptisches Museum Kairo 2016-03-29 Tutanchamun Grabschatz 09.jpg|thumb|First known representation of the ouroboros, on one of the shrines enclosing the sarcophagus of [[Tutankhamun]]]]

=== Ancient Egypt ===
One of the earliest known ouroboros [[motif (narrative)|motifs]] is found in the ''[[Enigmatic Book of the Netherworld]]'', an [[ancient Egyptian funerary text]] in [[KV62]], the tomb of [[Tutankhamun]], in the 14th century BCE. The text concerns the actions of [[Ra]] and his union with [[Osiris]] in the [[Duat|underworld]]. The ouroboros is depicted twice on the figure: holding their tails in their mouths, one encircling the head and upper chest, the other surrounding the feet of a large figure, which may represent the unified Ra-Osiris ([[Osiris]] born again as [[Ra]]). Both serpents are manifestations of the deity [[Mehen]], who in other funerary texts protects Ra in his underworld journey. The whole divine figure represents the beginning and the end of time.<ref>Hornung, Erik. ''The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife''. [[Cornell University Press]], 1999. pp. 38, 77–78</ref>

The ouroboros appears elsewhere in Egyptian sources, where, like many Egyptian serpent deities, it represents the formless disorder that surrounds the orderly world and is involved in that world's periodic renewal.<ref>{{cite book|author=Hornung, Erik|title=Conceptions of God in Egypt: The One and the Many | publisher= Cornell University Press|year= 1982| pages=163–64}}</ref> The symbol persisted from Egyptian into [[Roman Egypt|Roman times]], when it frequently appeared on magical [[talisman]]s, sometimes in combination with other magical emblems.{{Sfn | Hornung | 2002 | p = 58}} The 4th-century CE Latin commentator [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]] was aware of the Egyptian use of the symbol, noting that the image of a snake biting its tail represents the cyclical nature of the year.<ref>[[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]], note to ''[[Aeneid]]'' 5.85: "according to the Egyptians, before the invention of the alphabet the year was symbolized by a picture, a serpent biting its own tail because it recurs on itself" ''(annus secundum Aegyptios indicabatur ante inventas litteras picto dracone caudam suam mordente, quia in se recurrit)'', as cited by Danuta Shanzer, ''A Philosophical and Literary Commentary on Martianus Capella's ''De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii'' Book 1'' (University of California Press, 1986), p. 159.</ref>

=== Gnosticism and alchemy ===
[[File:Chrysopoea of Cleopatra 1.png|upright|thumb|Early alchemical ouroboros illustration with the words ἓν τὸ πᾶν ("The All is [[Henology|One]]") from the work of [[Cleopatra the Alchemist]] in MS [[Biblioteca Marciana|Marciana]] gr. Z. 299. (10th century)]]
In [[Gnosticism]], a serpent biting its tail symbolised eternity and the soul of the world.<ref>Origen, ''[[Contra Celsum]]'' 6.25.</ref> The Gnostic ''[[Pistis Sophia]]'' (c. 400 CE) describes the ouroboros as a twelve-part dragon surrounding the world with its tail in its mouth.{{Sfn | Hornung | 2002 | p = 76}}

The famous ouroboros drawing from the early [[Alchemy|alchemical]] text, ''The [[Chrysopoeia]] of Cleopatra'' ({{lang|grc|Κλεοπάτρας χρυσοποιία}}), probably originally dating to the 3rd century [[Alexandria]], but first known in a 10th-century copy, encloses the words ''hen to pan'' ({{lang|grc|ἓν τὸ πᾶν}}), "the all is [[Henology|one]]". Its black and white halves may perhaps represent a [[Gnosticism|Gnostic]] [[dualistic cosmology|duality]] of existence, analogous to the [[Taoism|Taoist]] [[yin and yang]] symbol.<ref>{{cite book|author=Eliade, Mircea| title=Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions|location= Chicago and London| publisher= U of Chicago Press|year= 1976|pages=55, 93–113}}</ref> The [[chrysopoeia]] ouroboros of [[Cleopatra the Alchemist]] is one of the oldest images of the ouroboros to be linked with the legendary [[Magnum opus (alchemy)|''opus'']] of the alchemists, the [[philosopher's stone]].{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

A 15th-century alchemical manuscript, ''The Aurora Consurgens'', features the ouroboros, where it is used among symbols of the sun, moon, and mercury.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bekhrad |first=Joobin |title=The ancient symbol that spanned millennia |url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20171204-the-ancient-symbol-that-spanned-millennia |access-date=24 July 2021 |publisher=BBC |language=en}}</ref>

<gallery mode="packed" heights="200" widths="100">
File:KellsFol124rTuncCrucifixerant.jpg|A highly stylised ouroboros from ''[[The Book of Kells]]'', an illuminated Gospel Book (c.&nbsp;800 CE)
File:Ouroboros 1.jpg|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 (element)#History|mercury]].<ref>[[:de:Lambspring|Lambsprinck]]: ''De Lapide Philosophico''. E Germanico versu Latine redditus, per Nicolaum Barnaudum Delphinatem .... Sumptibus LUCAE JENNISSI, Frankfurt 1625, [https://books.google.com/books?id=_NHNKtBwYmgC&pg=PA17 p.&nbsp;17].</ref>
File:Tractat von dem Kauen und Schmatzen der Todten in Gräbern 001.jpg|An engraving of a woman holding an ouroboros in [[Michael Ranft]]'s 1734 treatise on vampires
File:Transylvanian Thaler of Gabriel Bethlen 1621.jpg|Transylvanian [[Thaler]] of [[Gabriel Bethlen]] showing his portrait and coat of arms including an ouroboros in the center of the shield (1621)
File:Theosophicalsealfrench.svg|Seal of the [[Theosophical Society]], founded 1875
File:Labaro Reggenza Italiana del Carnaro.svg|Flag of the short-lived [[Italian Regency of Carnaro]] at [[Fiume]], bearing the snake Ouroborus
</gallery>

=== World serpent in mythology ===
In [[Norse mythology]], the ouroboros appears as the serpent [[Jörmungandr]], one of the three children of [[Loki]] and [[Angrboda]], which grew so large that it could encircle the world and grasp its tail in its teeth. In the legends of [[Ragnar Lodbrok]], such as ''[[Ragnarssona þáttr]]'', the Geatish king [[Herraud]] gives a small [[lindworm]] as a gift to his daughter [[Þóra Town-Hart]] after which it grows into a large serpent which encircles the girl's [[Bedroom|bower]] and bites itself in the tail. The serpent is slain by Ragnar Lodbrok who marries Þóra. Ragnar later has a son with another woman named [[Kráka]] and this son is born with the image of a white snake in one eye. This snake encircled the iris and bit itself in the tail, and the son was named [[Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jurich |first=Marilyn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iEPNBUkkqzsC&pg=PA160 |title=Scheherazade's Sisters: Trickster Heroines and Their Stories in World Literature |date=1998 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-29724-3 |language=en}}</ref>

It is a common belief among [[indigenous peoples|indigenous people]] of the tropical lowlands of South America that waters at the edge of the world-disc are encircled by a snake, often an anaconda, biting its own tail.<ref>{{Citation |last=Roe |first=Peter |title=The Cosmic Zygote |year=1986 |publisher=Rutgers University Press}}</ref>

The ouroboros has certain features in common with the Biblical [[Leviathan]]. According to the [[Zohar]], the Leviathan is a singular creature with no mate, "its tail is placed in its mouth", while [[Rashi]] on [[Baba Batra]] 74b describes it as "twisting around and encompassing the entire world". The identification appears to go back as far as the poems of [[Kalir]] in the 6th–7th centuries.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

=== Connection to Indian thought ===
In the ''[[Aitareya Brahmana]]'', a [[Vedas|Vedic]] text of the early 1st millennium BCE, the nature of the [[Historical Vedic religion|Vedic rituals]] is compared to "a snake biting its own tail."<ref>Witzel, M., "[http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/canon.pdf The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools: The Social and Political Milieu]" in Witzel, Michael (ed.) (1997), ''Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts. New Approaches to the Study of the Vedas'', Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora vol. 2, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 325 footnote 346</ref>

Ouroboros symbolism has been used to describe the [[Kundalini]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Henneberg |first1=Maciej |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MQnqDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA137 |title=The Dynamic Human |last2=Saniotis |first2=Arthur |date=24 March 2016 |publisher=Bentham Science Publishers |isbn=978-1-68108-235-6 |page=137 |language=en}}</ref> According to the medieval ''[[Yoga-kundalini Upanishad]]'': "The divine power, Kundalini, shines like the stem of a young lotus; like a snake, coiled round upon herself she holds her tail in her mouth and lies resting half asleep as the base of the body" (1.82).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mahony |first=William K. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B1KR_kE5ZYoC&pg=PA191 |title=The Artful Universe: An Introduction to the Vedic Religious Imagination |date=1 January 1998 |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=978-0-7914-3579-3 |page=191 |language=en}}</ref>

Storl (2004) also refers to the ouroboros image in reference to the "cycle of [[samsara]]".<ref name="Storl">"When Shakti is united with Shiva, she is a radiant, gentle goddess; but when she is separated from him, she turns into a terrible, destructive fury. She is the endless Ouroboros, the dragon biting its own tail, symbolizing the cycle of samsara." {{Cite book |last=Storl |first=Wolf-Dieter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dvo9ScSbz0IC&pg=PA219 |title=Shiva: The Wild God of Power and Ecstasy |date=2004 |publisher=Inner Traditions / Bear & Co |isbn=978-1-59477-780-6 |page=219}}</ref>