Do you know what an ouroboros is?
A snake eating its own tail sounds like the end of a game. In an ancient symbol, it can mean a new beginning.
Theodoros Pelecanos / Wikimedia Commons · Public domain. Responsive display may crop the image.
You might have heard a name like “Oroboro.” The symbol we’re exploring is usually called the ouroboros: a snake, or sometimes a dragon, curving around until its mouth meets its own tail.
A picture with no obvious beginning
Follow the creature around the circle. Where does it start? Where does it finish? That is part of the idea. The University Museum at the University of Tokyo describes the symbol as expressing ideas including infinity and repeated renewal. It is a picture people have used to think about cycles.
One symbol, different stories
Its meaning depends on where you find it. Yale’s exhibition on Egypt describes an old text, Hieroglyphica, that used the tail-eating serpent to represent the universe. A Greek manuscript of that work was rediscovered in 1419, and later translations helped its imagery travel through European art.
So it is more than a strange snake drawing. It is an example of how one simple image can hold a very big question.
What other things go in cycles—seasons, water, or something you noticed today?
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Sources checked October 16, 2026. Publication dates refer to our articles, not when the facts were discovered.