thumb|15th century depiction of an Ouroboros from the alchemical treatise '' (Zurich, Rheinau 172'').
I cannot write an accurate overview based solely on this context, as it only provides a single image caption from a 15th-century alchemical text without substantive information about what alchemy is or why it matters. To provide an accurate and helpful overview as requested, I would need additional source material with explanatory content.
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via Wikipedia infobox
thumb|15th century depiction of an Ouroboros from the alchemical treatise '' (Zurich, Rheinau 172).
Alchemy (from the Arabic word , ) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD. Greek-speaking alchemists often referred to their craft as "the Art" () or "Knowledge" (), and it was often characterised as mystic (), sacred (), or divine ().
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