a detailed explanation of the political symbol snake biting its own tail to form a ring...

The correct term is Ourovoros Ophis (the tail-eating snake) and its greek from oura (tail) vora (eating) and ophis (snake, serpent). The Chinese had images of pig-headed dragons (the earliest dragon archetypes, 4700-2200 b.C.) eating their tails. Then it appears in Egypt. The Greek philosophers gave the sympol its name: Plato (in Timaios) identifies it with the first primordial, immortal, perfect being. The snake (or dragon, or winged dragon, in some cases) stands for a hermaphroditic symbol of rebirth. Generally the tail-eating snake is seen as a symbol of eternity, the endless cycle of life and death, but it is more complex than that: there is two quite different images of the Ourovoros - the one who bites his tail and the one who swallows its tail. The first is static (often painted half-black, half-white), dividing what is inside and what is outside, a symbol of perfection and balance between negative and positive, male and female, constructive and destructive, somewhat like the yin & yang. The second, however, is dynamic: it symbolises spiral movement and energy; when the snake reaches it head it dissapears, and so it signifies the whole and the absolute, consuming itself until it reaches the point where it has to start again. This is its symbolic use in Alchemy. Orphic cosmology (an ancient greek mystic movement c. 6th century bC) recognised the Ourovoros Ophis as the symbol of Aeon, the lifetime of All & Everything (the univerce), as the snake was wrapped around the cosmic egg, forming a perfect circle (Epikouros -341 to 270 bC- wrote: "the whole was from the beginning like an egg, with the serpent/spirit around it like a circle"). It was the codex of Markianos (11th century AD) that attracted Karl Jung's attention to the symbol as an archetype, together with the term "One the Whole". So the symbolism can be interpreted according to these two variations, as a symbol of a static, immobile, perfect universe that has closed the circle, attained wisdom and is at peace, or as a symbol of eternal energy, in the constant process of self-devouring and self-regenerating - "my End is my Beginning"; the latter version can be seen as a symbol of the eternally existing spirit and reincarnation or transmigration of the eternal soul...

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erpent). The Chinese had images of pig-headed dragons (the earliest dragon archetypes, 4700-2200 b.C.) eating their tails. Then it appears in Egypt. The Greek philosophers gave the sympol its name: Plato (in Timaios) identifies it with the first primordial, immortal, perfect being. The snake (or dragon, or winged dragon, in some cases) stands for a hermaphroditic symbol of rebirth. Generally the tail-eating snake is seen as a symbol of eternity, the endless cycle of life and death, but it is more complex than that: there is two quite different images of the Ourovoros - the one who bites his tail and the one who swallows its tail. The first is static (often painted half-black, half-white), dividing what is inside and what is outside, a symbol of perfection and balance between negative and positive, male and female, constructive and destructive, somewhat like the yin & yang. The second, however, is dynamic: it symbolises spiral movement and energy; when the snake reaches it head it dissapears, and so it signifies the whole and the absolute, consuming itself until it reaches the point where it has to start again. This is its symbolic use in Alchemy. Orphic cosmology (an ancient greek mystic movement c. 6th century bC) recognised the Ourovoros Ophis as the symbol of Aeon, the lifetime of All & Everything (the univerce), as the snake was wrapped around the cosmic egg, forming a perfect circle (Epikouros -341 to 270 bC- wrote: "the whole was from the beginning like an egg, with the serpent/spirit around it like a circle"). It was the codex of Markianos (11th century AD) that attracted Karl Jung 's attention to the symbol as an archetype, together with the term "One the Whole". So the symbolism can be interpreted according to these two variations, as a symbol of a static, immobile, perfect universe that has closed the circle, attained wisdom and is at peace, or as a symbol of eternal energy, in the constant process of self-devouring and self-regenerating - "my End is my Beginning"; the latter version can be seen as a symbol of the eternally existing spirit and reincarnation or transmigration of the eternal soul...