Carved into the golden shrine of a god‑king, this is the oldest known image of the Ouroboros: a single, unbroken line that devours division. It does not just represent time, it is time—folded into itself, without beginning or end. A perfect loop that defies linearity, and with it, the illusion that death is separate from life. To the Egyptian priesthood, this was cosmology in miniature. The sun’s descent into the underworld was not an ending, but a necessary swallowing—darkness feeding light, decay nourishing rebirth. The Ouroboros would later echo through alchemy, Jungian psychology, and modern physics. A line with no outside. A truth that devours doubt.

The Ouroboros — a serpent devouring its own tail — is one of the oldest and most enduring symbols in human history. Its earliest known depiction appears on the golden shrine of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, c. 1330 BCE, where it encircles the head and feet of a god, enclosing the cosmos in a single unbroken line. It represents time not as a line, but as a loop: life folding into death, endings feeding beginnings, eternity as a cycle rather than a destination. The serpent consumes itself yet remains whole — a paradox that speaks to the nature of transformation, identity, and continuity. Across cultures and eras, the Ouroboros has reappeared as a symbol of cosmic unity, alchemical rebirth, and the recursive nature of consciousness. It is the logic of seasons, of memory, of myth. In the Egyptian version, it is more than metaphor — it is architecture. The universe itself is shown as something that eats and renews, bound not by chaos but by sacred repetition. To glimpse the Ouroboros is to witness a truth that predates language: that everything we are is made from what came before, and what we leave behind will one day become us again.