The Ouroboros—which symbolizes the cyclical nature of life and death and the divine essence that lives on forever—was first recorded in the Egyptian Book of the Netherworld. Alchemists then adopted ...

As a new exhibition looks at the concept of the loop, Joobin Bekhrad discovers how one symbol had different meanings in ancient Egypt, Hindu mythology and Renaissance alchemy. The oldest-known ...

In this theory, one of the first symbols to stand out is the Ouroboros, depicted as a red serpent closely tied to alchemy. This serpent, often linked to the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone and the ...