Vestiges of the Ourobóros in Medieval Islamic Visual Tradition

The symbolism of the encircling serpent-dragon holding its own tail in the mouth was traditionally known by its Greek name as ourobóros. By tracing its transfer and transformation from late antiquity to the medieval Islamic period, this paper discusses the specific cosmogonic and cosmological development and context within which this motif is embedded in the Western Central Asia region. By reviewing hypotheses concerning the iconography and iconology of the symbolism, it examines the circular serpent-dragon’s astrological, magical or alchemical associations, related abstract notions such as eternity, union and infinity as well as aspects of its prosopography. Particularly noteworthy is its geographic link with the outermost boundary of the visible world, for the world-encircling ourobóros is known to mark the boundary between the inhabited world and the waters that surround it, thus between order and chaos around it; thereby appearing as exponent of liminality situated upon the ambiguous dividing line between the divine and the demonic, its manifestly dual nature confers on the ourobóros an intermediate status. The paper moreover examines the iconographical and iconological transformation of the single encircling serpent-dragon of pre-Islamic tradition into the doubled ourobóros in medieval Islamic iconography represented as paired interlaced circular serpent-dragons.