A Kola nut container in the style of Benin

A Kola nut container in the style of Benin, the large head piece holds a container with a basic triangular shape, which is completely integrated into the fish shape with a lid. The entire surface consists of the fish scale ornament. The tail protruding from the right side of the mouth with pointed teeth shows a groove-like pattern. The idiosyncratic shape of the body with the rounded tail leading into the mouth is stabilised by a pair of crossed spikes, which are in turn laced at the crossing by a rope. Some age-related punctures in the lid and base of the interior, otherwise reddish-brown patina.

The phenomenon of the ouroboros or also uroboros, which already appeared in Ancient Egypt as a pictorial symbol, is illustrated with one for a snake biting its own tail, thus forming a closed circle with its own body.

In art historical research, an exhibition entitled "Never ending stories".
The Loop in Art, Film, Architecture, Music, Literature and Cultural History“
interesting references to the theme of Ouroboros as a symbol of infinity and eternity circling within itself through the centuries and world cultures.
In the show, the alchemy of the Middle Ages, the book learning of the Renaissance, Buddhism, Germanic mythology, occidental Christianity and atheistic philosophy met.

Another Benin broze in shape of a catfish, s. our Beni exhibition 2018

Similar representations referring to this symbol appear in many cultures.
Plato already described a "spherical being with a circular shape protruding
equally from the centre to all end points" as the most perfect form. Ouroboros needs nothing outside itself, no nourishment, since its food is its own excretions, and it needs no organs of locomotion, since outside itself there is no place to which it could go. He circles in and around himself, forming the circle as the most perfect of all forms.

With regard to the figure described here and its function as a container,
alchemical literature could provide information, because it makes the ouroboros the image symbol of a self-contained and repetitive process of transformationof matter,which in heating, evaporating, cooling and condensing a liquid is intended to refine substances, Duett In this process, the animal form closed into a circle is often replaced by two beings that connect the mouth and the end of the tail.

Jorge Luis Borges discusses the ouroboros in his collection Unicorn,
Sphinx and Salamander - A Handbook of Fantastic Zoology, which he believes owes its fame to Scandinavian cosmogony. (Jorge Luis Borges, 1899-1986, Argentinian writer and librarian) Friedrich Nietzsche dealt with thoughts on the "Eternal Return" in many of his works. and the phenomenon of the ouroboros. In the often quoted fragment "Allem Zukünftigen beißt das Vergangene in den Schwanz“ ( The Future Bites the Past in the Tail) from the collection of texts "Nachgelassene Fragmente“ (The Fragments left behind), the forms these reflections into an aphorism. (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, 1844 - 1900, German philosopher, essayist, poet and writer)

Lit. Felix von Luschan "Die Altertümer Benins", Band 1, S. 370 - 371

Width: 33 cm
Height :12 cm
Weight: 5,6 kg