[HN Gopher] Bronze objects that have baffled archeologists
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Bronze objects that have baffled archeologists
Author : evo_9
Score : 55 points
Date : 2021-12-28 19:48 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.mentalfloss.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.mentalfloss.com)
| zppln wrote:
| I don't usually bother to complain about ads, but this site is
| really atrocious. It auto-played me 6 ads (including the same one
| several times) before playing the video (that I'm not interested
| in anyway). Then it keeps following me around as I scroll through
| the ad infested article. Someone somewhere should be shot.
| llovan wrote:
| Maybe Romans were getting those for the cool factor, similar to
| how the tungsten cubes are en vogue today.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I wonder how many cheap plastic Happy Meal toys will someday
| thousands of years from now be dug up and deemed to have
| special religious significance to our culture.
| TuringTest wrote:
| No, it's the super heroes and Disney figurines what will be
| considered deities - their sheer volume will make them a
| frequent archeological finding.
| trhway wrote:
| if history is any guide then the future archeologists
| looking at modern internet will conclude that we're living
| in matriarchate these days like the today's scientists
| conclude that about past societies upon finding this Venus
| figurines
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurine
|
| Or like for example another interpretation there produced
| by scientists who seem to have never seen that Kim
| Kardashian Instagram post :)
|
| "It has been suggested that they may be a sign of an
| earlier prevalence of steatopygia, now associated
| principally to women of certain African or Andamanese
| ancestry. However the Venuses do not qualify as
| steatopygian, since they exhibit an angle of approximately
| 120 degrees between the back and the buttocks, while
| steatopygia is diagnosed by modern medical standards at an
| angle of about 90 degrees only.[21]"
| programmarchy wrote:
| Our Gods Wear Spandex [1] is actually a super interesting
| book.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Our-Gods-Wear-Spandex-
| History/dp/1578...
| folli wrote:
| Praise be Mickey.
| garmaine wrote:
| .
| DFHippie wrote:
| The objects are made of bronze.
| postalrat wrote:
| I don't see bronze age in the title or or in the article.
| garmaine wrote:
| I appear to have misread.
| thrower123 wrote:
| I could have sworn that they'd figured out these were some kind
| of knitting template
| MadcapJake wrote:
| This seems plausible. I wonder if they could identity any
| particulate from the fibers around the knobs that might
| corroborate this.
|
| On the wikipedia page there is an icosahedron pictured next to
| these that does not have finger size holes but I suppose that
| could be unrelated to this artifact's purpose.
| imglorp wrote:
| This seems plausible. Here's a modern spool knitter of similar
| design.
|
| https://i.etsystatic.com/5608782/r/il/81ee17/366269940/il_79...
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Indeed:
|
| > _Several individuals have suggested that the dodecahedra are
| knitting aids, specifically for knitting gloves, with different
| sized holes intended for the different sizes of fingers, and
| the pegs serving as a lattice to hold the yarn._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron
|
| But of course just because someone has managed to make a glove
| using one, does not really prove that it was their primary
| purpose.
| masklinn wrote:
| This is mentioned in the article but treated as a joke:
|
| > Other internet researchers, perhaps less seriously, have
| used 3D-printed models of the Roman dodecahedrons for
| knitting experiments, and suggested that the true purpose of
| the objects was to create differently sized fingers for Roman
| woolen gloves.
|
| Although IIRC when it was first proposed the people who
| proposed it seemed very earnest and to see it as obvious.
|
| And it nicely explains a lot of the peculiarities e.g. the
| nubs make sense for attaching yarn, and different people have
| different finger sizes (up to layers) but the precise sizing
| is not super important as long as you have a gradation with
| steps which aren't too big.
|
| It also looks quite close to spool (or "french") knitting.
|
| Though there's the objection that the dodecahedra are serious
| overkill for those needs when a plank with a few nails would
| do the trick. There's also the "OOPArt" factor: knitting
| spools were invented in the 17th century or so, and known
| records for circular knitting are not that much older.
| smolder wrote:
| I think they could either just be pretty, ornate keepsakes, or
| maybe a sort of teaching tool in the direction of geometry. My
| qualifications: none at all, but I enjoy pretty, ornate things,
| and I would keep one of these on my desk. They're also clearly
| interesting geometrically.
| [deleted]
| achn wrote:
| I'm sure this is not an original theory, but when I saw the
| device i immediately thought that it may be a tool to sort /
| check the size of coins. Each size lines up to a known gold or
| silver piece. The largest hole allows all to be removed easily.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Not sure if it adds or detracts from your theory, but coins
| were sometimes clipped to change their value. I've got a silver
| one that had the edge clipped off to alter its value.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| People disagree with the rangefinder theory because "no two Roman
| dodecahedrons are the same size". But the only thing that matters
| for a rangefinder is the ratio between the sizes of opposing
| holes (edit: and face-to-face distance). Anything we know about
| that?
|
| edit: this paper includes some measurements
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225187575_Roman_Dod...
| swamp40 wrote:
| You would still need markings on them though, I would think.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Maybe there were markings in charcoal, paint, chalk or
| whatever, but they didn't last.
| masklinn wrote:
| Given the intricacy of the smithing that seems less than
| sensible, it's not like the size of the items changes
| significantly, so having markings you can just wipe away
| and needing to re-measure and re-mark the item regularly
| sounds far from optimal.
| Certified wrote:
| > having markings you can just wipe away and needing to
| re-measure and re-mark the item regularly sounds far from
| optimal.
|
| Unless the delibility of ink was a feature they desired.
| Hypothesizing that they were trying to prevent a working
| ranger from falling into the wrong hands wouldn't strike
| me as absurd. Dropping them in a firepit or stream to
| remove the ink would be pretty handy if you know your
| military encampment is about to be over-run and you can't
| save everything.
| kloch wrote:
| From the picture in the article each hole seems to have rings
| of different widths and possibly counts.
| chongli wrote:
| _Baffled_.
|
| There's that word again. Journalists are absolutely in love with
| that word when it comes to science. So popular it's got its own
| meme page [1].
|
| [1] http://www.scientistsbaffled.com/
| wolfgang42 wrote:
| As I've said before on HN (on the topic of "fuzzy green
| 'glacier mice'" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23280378):
|
| > Being baffled is pretty much a scientist's job. (What's that
| old quote about "the most important phrase in science is 'hmm,
| that's funny...'"?)
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| For most of the uses posited in the article, it seems like
| icosohedra (coincidentally, the dual of the dodecahedron) would
| have made more sense. After all, if 12 pairs of opposite faces
| are good, wouldn't 20 be better?
| nathias wrote:
| 12 is better, it's special - the lowest superior highly
| composite number
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| How would that matter for any of the uses suggested in the
| article? 12 and 20 have the same number of divisors.
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