[HN Gopher] Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in Eng...
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Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 201 points
Date : 2024-01-23 11:33 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| jhoechtl wrote:
| They are to portion noodles
| taneq wrote:
| Not to decide the outcome of fantasy combat?
| emiliobumachar wrote:
| Sex toy. Definitely sex toy.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| It's kind of like a mix between the thunderdome and a thumb
| war, but also not.
| bregma wrote:
| Anything is a sex toy if you're brave enough.
| dejj wrote:
| No.
|
| > it's been buried for 1,700 years
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti#History says:
|
| > The first written record of pasta comes from the Talmud in
| the 5th century AD
|
| > In the West, it may have first been worked into long, thin
| forms in Sicily around the 12th century
| Astraco wrote:
| You must be fun at parties
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Keeping the mystery alive is fun
| Loughla wrote:
| My favorite thing about archaeology is that if they have no idea
| whatever about the things they find. . .
|
| >were used for ritualistic or religious purposes
|
| Don't know what it is? Religion baby.
| Angostura wrote:
| It's kind of a running joke amongst archeologists themselves.
| dejj wrote:
| See: "Motel of the Mysteries" by David Macaulay
|
| > "that the toilet seat is a sacred collar one must wear
| before shouting, down the hole, to the gods below"
|
| https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/162247/humorous-
| st...
| ertian wrote:
| See also paleontologists, and "it was probably for attracting
| a mate and/or regulating body temperature".
| deely3 wrote:
| Don't forget fertility rituals.
| stabbles wrote:
| Similarly the overuse evolutionary biology.
|
| Obviously this ... seemingly useless feature must have been ...
| crucial to survival of this species.
|
| I guess Thomas Kuhn calls this ordinary science. Explanation
| within the framework. But it's incredibly dull
| yreg wrote:
| But in biology, any single feature is just a random mutation
| + not enough evolutionary pressure to weed it out. ('Crucial
| to survival' is a stretch.)
|
| How can the evolutionary explanation be overused? It
| literally applies in case of and explains any single feature,
| no?
| stabbles wrote:
| The equivalent of "this behavior too can be explained by
| the laws of natural selection" in physics would be "this
| object too follows the laws of Newtonian mechanics".
|
| Usually solving the paradox (something looks redundant, but
| must be useful in some way) requires some creativity, but
| ultimately it's always a rather boring confirmation of the
| theory.
|
| The danger of normal science is that scientists turn "it
| can be explained by the theory" into "it must be explained
| by the theory".
| SamBam wrote:
| I mean, in general, yes that is true in biology.
|
| The energy required to maintain bodily structures mean that
| they tend to be relevant to evolutionary fitness. There are
| very few structures that are entirely irrelevant, even if the
| specific difference in form between different populations may
| be the result of genetic drift.
|
| That said, I think your example would work by replacing it
| with "sexual selection." Don't know why bird feathers have
| complex micro-structures allowing them to reflect UV light?
| Let's just call it "sexual selection."
| NL807 wrote:
| Or when they find dicks, drawn, sculpted, or otherwise:
|
| >it must be a fertility symbol
|
| The ancients didn't do dick jokes/humour apparently.
| huytersd wrote:
| Well the Indians still worship Shiva's penis. Look up Shiva
| lingams. I like to think about what it would be like if
| Christians prayed to Jesus' dick sometimes.
| eigenket wrote:
| A very very large number of Christians have prayed if not
| to then at relics purported to be (parts of) Jesus' dick.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Prepuce
| morelisp wrote:
| Lots of dick jokes are also fertility symbols / rituals
| today.
| Someone wrote:
| " _ritualistic_ or religious", and "ritual" has a very broad
| meaning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual: _"Even common
| actions like hand-shaking and saying "hello" may be termed as
| rituals."_
|
| It almost boils down to "we can't think of a way in which this
| got anybody (better) fed, clothed or housed"
| taneq wrote:
| One theory (albeit contested) is that they were used as a jig to
| knit gloves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76AvV601yJ0
| gaazoh wrote:
| That's kind of neat, but it looks too complex of an object for
| that purpose. A knitting spool (aka a jig to knit gloves) can
| be as simple as wood ring with nails around it. Even though it
| might work, it looks way too precious for such a common tool.
|
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spool_knitting for pictures
| wirrbel wrote:
| > The Historian Richard Rutt conservatively suggests that
| knitting originated in Egypt between 500 and 1200 A.D.
|
| Haven't watched the video but the evidence for knitting in
| England under Roman rule certainly isn't there. There were
| other methods to make knitting-like garments though so maybe
| this is explained in the video but I doubt that Romans knitted
| with this
| nerdponx wrote:
| I never considered that knitting might be so relatively new.
| Knitted wool clothing seems like an essential item for
| staying comfortable in cold wet weather. Did Europeans just
| rely on furs and skins before then?
| adrian_b wrote:
| No, they used woven wool garments (or felt).
|
| Any Roman male would use only woven wool clothes. Thinner
| fabrics, like linen or expensive imported silk or cotton
| were normally used only by women. Men who used them were
| derided as effeminate.
|
| Moreover, knitted wool is mostly suitable only for
| undergarments, as it does not offer enough protection
| against water and wind.
|
| Knitting provided more comfortable clothing, but it was not
| a necessity. There is no surprise in its late development.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| there are other ways to make yarn into flexible clothes:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%A5lebinding is fairly
| old -- mid-bronze age
|
| Felting and weaving (or both) are also quite old.
|
| Interestingly, the spinning wheel isn't: woven textiles
| produced in europe before the 13th century would have been
| produced with yarn or thread made on drop spindles:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindle_(textiles), and
| anything spinning-wheel-esque probably developed no earlier
| than c. 200-1000 globally.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| and naalbinding needs simpler tools.
| tristramb wrote:
| The use of these for knitting the fingers of gloves is
| obviously correct. It explains so many things about them:
|
| Their distribution (northern Europe - where you might need
| gloves). The knobs (to loop the wool round). The differing
| sizes of the holes (to fit fingers of different sizes).
|
| To say that the functions of these is unknown is just lazy
| journalism.
|
| I am sure if one of these had been handed to my late
| grandmother, who was a keen knitter, she would have recognised
| what it was for immediately.
| quacker wrote:
| It's a good theory, but not obvious at all.
|
| - It is not known that that the Romans used knitted clothing.
| Knitting was invented later.
|
| - Knitting can be done with cheaper, easier to craft tools
| that are just as effective. Knitting doesn't explain the cost
| and skill required to craft the dodecahedrons.
|
| - There is no wear on these dodecahedrons that we'd normally
| expect from a well-used tool.
| helpfulContrib wrote:
| Technically, this is not necessarily knitting, its
| crocheting ..
| eigenket wrote:
| There are examples known without the big holes in, which seem
| pretty much impossible to use for knitting.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| inb4 it was ancient fidget spinner
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Durn, you beat me.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| Just because a measuring device is not standards referenced does
| not mean it can not be used to measure.
|
| If I need a peg to match the size of a drill bit, any collection
| of 12 holes is likely to have one the size of the drill bit that
| lets me tell my peg maker to "make the pegs this size."
|
| Handymen are just cussed enough* to not label any of them, and to
| expect the FNG (new guy) to remember which of the 12 unlabeled
| holes was the one.
|
| * Cussed enough is a slang adjective that describes someone who
| does things that annoy people. We say it in Texas, but I do not
| expect everyone uses that phrase. I can not think of a standard
| term that carries the same connotations.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| implicit knowledge is everywhere.
|
| the trick is realizing that this isn't a bad thing.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| This was indeed, cussed knowledge.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Furthermore this article only states: _"They are not of a
| standard size, so will not be measuring devices. "_, which is
| incorrect since for use as a coincidence rangefinder
| (standardized to some standard) only the ratios between sizes
| of opposite holes would need to be standardized, not the size
| of the thing as a whole.
|
| The paper "Roman Dodecahedron as dioptron: analysis of freely
| available data" (https://arxiv.org/abs/1206.0946) collects
| measurements of opposite hole pairs for 7 artefacts for anyone
| wanting to do their own analysis.
| bombcar wrote:
| Measuring devices do not need to be standard size if you're
| not comparing them or following a recipe of sorts.
|
| You can use anything as a "ruler" to measure something and
| transfer that measurement to something else. It's what a jig
| or form does, after all.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| Seems to me the "experts" have no experience in construction,
| so they dismiss it - which makes me dismiss them.
| mrob wrote:
| I like the theory that it's an examination piece to qualify as a
| master metalworker. Casting a flawless dodecahedron could have
| been a way to demonstrate your skill. The shape is somewhat
| arbitrary: anything that's both difficult to cast and easy to
| examine for quality would work, but once people started making
| dodecahedrons that's what people expected and it became a kind of
| standard.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Interesting idea. I wonder if when comparing all 100 there's
| indicators that each are effectively unique in their
| manufacturing.
| pwillia7 wrote:
| I wonder if you could correlate where they're found to places
| with high quality forge/smithing operations
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| That theory works for me. Making a wooden hammer is a typical
| first project for the hand-tool woodworker -- so perhaps the
| metal smith had a similar hello world.
|
| My first thought was that the thing was some kind of "hub" for
| ropes used perhaps in some tent design. I was imagining rope
| loops passing through the holes and then looped over a stud on
| the other side. But the article says there are no signs of wear
| and so not a tool.
| timthelion wrote:
| This is no Hello world, this is more like a doctoral thesis I
| think...
| bee_rider wrote:
| Maybe more like a Professional Engineering license or a
| medical degree; to show familiarity with the standards of a
| particular profession.
| etrautmann wrote:
| I'm not sure why there's always so much focus on purpose.
| People build objects of geometric fascination as art objects
| all the time. I agree with you that there need not be any
| religious significance here.
| koromak wrote:
| But haven't these things been found all over the world? Like
| as far as Vietnam. We've found hundreds of them.
|
| "Its a cool object" doesn't quite explain its ubiquity, or
| the fact that they are almost identical looking despite which
| side of the globe their on. That suggests purpose to me.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Wheels and balls have also been found across the world.
|
| Dodecahedrons are fundamental shapes. Thus universal. And
| also expected size would be pretty much same. In general
| symmetry is pleasant. So I would expect symmetric shapes to
| come up when people have enough time and resources to build
| them, even if they have no use.
| eigenket wrote:
| Dodecahedrons with nobs on the vertices aren't really
| fundamental shapes. As far as I'm aware there have been
| zero found without the nobs on, and hundreds found with
| the nobs.
| lproven wrote:
| They are not symmetrical, though.
| Towaway69 wrote:
| Agree, why does it always have to be a religious object if an
| object doesn't have a clear and distinct purpose attached to
| it.
|
| I guess when future archeologist dig up our junk they'd
| believe we were an extremely religious society, with many
| superstitions and strange beliefs. /s
| marcosdumay wrote:
| "Ritualistic" doesn't mean "religious".
|
| All it means is that the way the object was used has no
| relation to the functionality of the object itself.
| stevage wrote:
| The article explains that this helps answer the question of
| why they aren't written about in the historical record,
| which is a big question.
| INTPenis wrote:
| That just doesn't work for me for two reasons, they would have
| been recycled almost immediately as all metals were relatively
| precious, and why don't we find as many other training pieces?
|
| And of course it goes without saying that they've appeared made
| out of non-metal materials.
| mrob wrote:
| They're small enough that I can imagine people holding onto
| them. The hollow construction also reduces the quantity of
| metal used. And it's possible that we find other training
| pieces but don't recognize them as such, because the other
| ones could have practical uses.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| Yes and no. I respect the "they would have been recycled"
| argument, but, there would still be _some_. If you were good
| enough to cast a Dodecahedron, you are probably rich enough
| to keep your best one, to show off to all the new hipster
| kids.
| INTPenis wrote:
| Any metal we find after 2000 years is a miracle. So the
| amount of these dodecahedrons indicate that there were a
| lot more in circulation at the time.
|
| 2000 years of poor and homeless people looking for any
| metal they can sell as scrap.
|
| That's why I don't buy the apprentice argument that always
| pops up in these discussions.
|
| In this case you'd be excused for saying it's some sort of
| ritualistic object. Because rituals are important in
| people's lives, important enough to create and carry around
| metal and stone objects with you. And rituals pervade all
| of society.
|
| I don't claim to know what it is, but I think it was either
| very important to some ritual, or very practical to some
| trade.
| nemo wrote:
| >Any metal we find after 2000 years is a miracle.
|
| That's not really true. There's regular finds of hoards
| of thousands of ancient coins that are in excellent
| condition, esp. Roman coins. You'll find there's an
| actually quite a large number of ancient metal artifacts
| archaeologists have discovered if you look into it.
| Certainly the preservation rate is very low since people
| tend to guard metal objects and recycle them, but things
| happen, today archaeologists estimate there's something
| in the order of 10-30 millions of Roman coins that have
| been recovered in museum collections and held by private
| owners.
|
| This depends on the metal, of course, iron preserves
| poorly as does bronze, so those are rare, but gold
| preserves extremely well, and silver better than bronze,
| esp. in drier conditions.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| Yes. Humans really liked burying things. Burying prized
| or expensive objects was pretty normal in human history.
| Layers of dirt only piled on with time. I don't think
| humans did much Archaeology pre-19th century. There are
| buckets of ancient coins. I leave this evidence of old
| metal laying around: "The Horses of Saint Mark, also
| known as Triumphal Quadriga, 2nd or 3rd century CE, via
| Basilica di San Marco, Venice"
| INTPenis wrote:
| But the very fact that people buried them proves how
| sought after they were.
|
| And of course if something is buried, and everyone
| involved dies before retrieving it, then it survives. But
| a lot of circumstances have to line up for that to
| happen.
| nemo wrote:
| They were very sought after, but it was very common for
| folks to put their money in a sealed ceramic pot to
| protect and hide it, either buried under the floor of
| their home somewhere or outside in some secret spot.
| There were regular wars, plagues, invasions, and other
| civic chaos that left many of these hidden troves long
| buried until someone later found them. Ancient peoples
| buried a lot of metal artifacts for burials or rituals
| (the Celts buried a _lot_ of weapons in their rites) that
| have been recovered as well. Lots of circumstances need
| to line up, but the ancient past had many very chaotic
| eras. With metal detectors large numbers of troves are
| being rediscovered.
| yendor wrote:
| They wouldn't be recycled if they were also used as a
| credential for quality of work. If you're a metal worker who
| wants to migrate to a new town, and wants to work at my
| forge, how do I know you can do quality work? Sure, these
| could be stolen but I'm assuming a master metal worker knows
| the right questions to ask to verify it's legitimate.
| INTPenis wrote:
| I don't think ancient roman society worked that way.
| Traveling is expensive first of all, carrying stuff if even
| more expensive. You carry what you need, not metal
| trinkets.
|
| And also your reputation is based mostly on word of mouth.
| That's how it still works in rural societies today.
|
| If there were any such certification for metalurgists it
| would have been a small one like a ring or a bracelet.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Ancient Roman society was not Medieval Europe, there was
| very little serfdom, especially among those with any
| skill whatsoever, so plenty of people moved from place to
| place, likely dozens or hundreds of times in their lives.
|
| There were plenty of captured slaves from conquered
| peoples, but skilled metalworkers would hardly belong to
| that group.
| garciansmith wrote:
| The vast majority of people would never have willingly
| traveled far from their birthplace, in medieval Europe or
| the Roman Empire. This is especially true for those who
| had few skills. You could do basic labor in your own
| village, but how could you leave without any money or
| support network (e.g., a family)? Why would people trust
| you elsewhere? The dynamic was probably different in
| larger cities, of which there were more in Roman times
| compared to the (at least early) medieval period though.
|
| This had little to do with serfdom, and practices that
| would fit under what we might call serfdom were extremely
| varied from time and place. It would have been very rare
| for someone to have the means, ability, and desire to
| move far from their home yet couldn't because they were
| somehow legally bound to land owned by a lord (who only
| had power over that one area anyhow).
| bee_rider wrote:
| The speculation is that there were created by advanced
| apprentices. What we'd now call "journeymen." Most people
| didn't move around maybe, but I wouldn't be that
| surprised to find that they did.
| throwup238 wrote:
| They absolutely would have moved around since one of the
| most common ways to get the apprenticeships was to sign
| up to help with an army that was mobilizing for war.
| Militaries needed a lot of blacksmiths to tag along as
| support and they needed a lot of apprentices for manual
| labor. When they came back from, they often had a little
| more choice in where to go back to so they had quite a
| bit more mobility over all.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Not just that, but "head out with the military, stay
| where you end up (or somewhere along the route)" is a
| tried-and-true method of moving people throughout
| history. How else would you end up with Latin dialects
| spoken over a range from Portugal to the Black Sea?
| shuntress wrote:
| People definitely travelled. For business, religion, and
| pleasure.
|
| There wouldn't be such extensive roads if they didn't.
| INTPenis wrote:
| Sure, but for the vast majority of workers and artisans
| they would most likely do a pilgrimage. And we have found
| tons of little charms, even penises, but they are all
| much smaller than any of the dodecahedrons.
|
| Travel with luggage is what I was referring to as rare
| for most people.
| arp242 wrote:
| People travelled, but regular people didn't routinely
| travel to the other side of the empire. The road network
| was probably used more for "local travel" than "far
| travel".
| karaterobot wrote:
| You're right that the master metal worker should be able to
| sniff out a fraud, but then what role does the dodecahedron
| play? It would be like me applying to a programming job by
| showing up with a ZIP file of some code I'd written in the
| past, which of course I promise I didn't steal from a
| better programmer. You'd probably give it very little
| credence compared to either personal references or work
| done in front of you.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Lots of artifacts have survived that were made of metal that
| didn't get recycled and didn't serve a practical purpose.
| After coinage, the most common metal artifacts from that time
| period are simple pendants and jewelry. Most of them made
| from iron and bronze rather than precious metals.
| c048 wrote:
| There are numerous tokens that people hold on to even to this
| day, especially if it's a token symbolizing 'coming of age'.
| wigster wrote:
| my brother is a welder and he made a similar thing during his
| training (30 years ago)
| nemo wrote:
| One thing to keep in mind is the geographic distribution of
| these things. They're mostly found in the province of Gallia
| and Britain, and not in other regions. There'd be a lot of
| metalworkers in Rome and the surrounding cities in central and
| south Italy, but no artifacts like this have been found, and
| they've found > 100 of them now so the distribution is probably
| significant.
| lithos wrote:
| The cities likely had some form of guild system to prove
| claims like this.
|
| The middle of nowhere you could prove yourself with a
| standardized piece of work.
|
| ___
|
| Though personally I like the "glove grandma" video of her
| crocheting gloves with the pieces.
| mcphage wrote:
| > The cities likely had some form of guild system to prove
| claims like this.
|
| > The middle of nowhere you could prove yourself with a
| standardized piece of work.
|
| Which is why it's significant that none have been found in
| Rome, or any of the major warmer cities.
| yreg wrote:
| Why? This could have been just some local system in that
| region.
| TSiege wrote:
| I think you and the poster are in agreement. The
| significance is that you wouldn't need knitted gloves in
| Mediterranean climates. So if this was for some other use
| or as a novelty, you'd expect it evenly distributed
| throughout the empire
| imglorp wrote:
| The knitting aid is persuasive. It fits with the geography,
| explains the different hole sizes, and it explains the
| knobs.
|
| Here's one of those vids; there are many more:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76AvV601yJ0
| SamBam wrote:
| I don't really buy that theory. There's no explanation
| for why it needs to be this very-hard-to-cast bronze
| dodecahedron, instead of just a wooden board with pegs
| and holes, which is all that would be needed for the
| video above.
| jzebedee wrote:
| It's possible that most were made out of common
| materials. Only those made of something sufficiently
| resilient survived for us to find.
| prox wrote:
| Basically a show off piece for those with enough coin!
| atoav wrote:
| Why not? If it was a common item, it would be natural
| that there a deluxe versions for e.g. the royal
| household.
|
| The cheap and simple versions would have rotted away by
| now.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| The article mentions that none of them exhibit wear marks
| that are characteristic of tools.
| lazide wrote:
| Do you think show pieces in rich households would be
| used?
|
| I'd argue if they did, someone was getting fired
| immediately.
| nkrisc wrote:
| I've seen many vases and other such vessels in the homes
| of rich people that are not used to store liquids, but
| instead sit there empty on a console table in the
| hallway!
| nemo wrote:
| In that case this isn't a tool, it's a decoration. And if
| _none_ of them are worn, then the decoration isn 't
| imitating a knitting tool, since _some_ show wear if that
| were its actual use.
| flir wrote:
| Annoyingly, there's no wear. It's not a tool.
|
| Also: the size of the tube in French knitting isn't
| controlled by the size of the hole, it's controlled by
| the spacing of the pegs. You have to pass the wool over
| the pegs, so logically the pegs should be cylindrical not
| round. Earliest evidence for French knitting is 1535.
| There's no evidence for knitting of any kind until
| centuries after these things.
|
| I'm going with prentice piece, based on the lack of wear.
| You hang a diploma on the wall, you put a prentice piece
| on a shelf for 30 years and barely touch it. (Although
| the gold examples would argue against this, I think).
| imglorp wrote:
| Why would there be wear in metal? Maybe from hands over
| years?
|
| The peg spacing is a very good point and maybe the
| disqualifier.
|
| I'm very dubious about the knitting claim. Woven textiles
| seem to go back 27,000 years. Knitting is just weaving,
| with fewer steps, using sticks.
| stevage wrote:
| Is there any info about where the pieces were found? If
| they are apprentice pieces there ought to be clues in
| their found locations.
| shuntress wrote:
| You are trying to make the facts fit the theory.
|
| Also, if we assume this were some kind of guild-related
| standard, it becomes even more odd that they are not
| mentioned in any accounts or records.
| nemo wrote:
| Why none in Roman North Africa or all the other provinces
| in the east which were also "the middle of nowhere" with
| the same needs of metal work as Gallia/Britain.
| mkl wrote:
| Cultures and traditions are different in different
| places, even with gigabit internet and ubiquitous
| literacy.
| nemo wrote:
| Roman North Africa was thoroughly Romanized by the era
| these start showing up, and the eastern provinces were as
| well. The might be some cultural reason these show up
| where they do, seems likely, it's very, very dubious that
| this cultural reason had to do with metalworkers
| identifying themselves since the sort of Roman metal
| working technology and culture around it was actually
| very standardized across the empire at this time.
| mkl wrote:
| Well, the regions the dodecahedrons have been found were
| mostly _not_ thoroughly Romanised, right? From
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron: "at
| least 116 similar objects have been found in Austria,
| Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, the
| Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom".
| nemo wrote:
| No, that's not right at all. Those areas were all part of
| the Roman empire and thoroughly Romanized as well. They
| used generally identical Roman technologies in Britain as
| North Africa or Italy, spoke the same Latin, used the
| same building styles, clothing styles varied primarily by
| how many layers they wore, they had the same legal
| system, and shared Roman arts and culture.
|
| Man of those countries speak Germanic languages now since
| they were invaded by Germanic speaking people after the
| Western Roman Empire collapsed, but there's still Roman
| ruins and old Roman cities to be found in all of those
| countries.
| lazide wrote:
| Why would they need knit mittens/gloves in North Africa?
| nemo wrote:
| I don't think they would, geographic frequency actually
| does make the knitting tool idea more compelling, though
| none of the dodecahedra show any sign of wear from use
| which makes the knitting tool hypothesis sound unlikely -
| if the dodecahedra was a tool it wasn't used frequently
| at all. I don't think any hypothesis is all that
| compelling, they are very much a mystery.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| As someone from the former capital of Raetia ;-) I might add
| "Since then, at least 116 similar objects have been found in
| Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, the
| Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom"
|
| PS: Still humbled and amazed to find my small hometown of
| Cambodunum (70k people) on maps of major Roman roads like
|
| https://latin4everyone.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/roman_roa.
| ..
| arp242 wrote:
| The Roman Empire wasn't homogeneous.
|
| Going from Rome to Lyon was about two weeks of travel. Paris
| and London about a month. Possibly (much) longer depending on
| season and how much funds you had.
|
| You can imagine how often the average metalworker from Rome
| visited these places.
| ragazzina wrote:
| Why are they often found in coin hoards then? This makes no
| sense.
| throwup238 wrote:
| They've got a lot of sentimental value to the original owners
| of those hoards. It actually makes more sense: master
| blacksmiths were far more likely to be wealthy enough to have
| coin hoards and considered the objects symbolic of the trade
| that made that wealth.
| happymellon wrote:
| So it's like a dev who's made themselves some money,
| getting buried with their C64?
| Towaway69 wrote:
| Symbolic of their trade is for me also a good explanation.
| Something like a guild symbol hanging on the front of their
| workshop.
|
| Or perhaps they were playing dungeons and dragons and
| needed these multiple faced dice ;)
| SantalBlush wrote:
| A lot of folks in this thread are latching on to this
| theory and making speculations to support it.
| throwup238 wrote:
| As is tradition in archaeology.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| It's the archaeologists saying, "Nobody knows for certain
| how the Romans used them," and offering a variety of
| competing theories, while people on this thread are
| trying to finesse the facts to support the theory they
| like.
|
| So saying, "archaeologists are doing it" is demonstrably
| untrue here.
| throwup238 wrote:
| There are plenty of academic papers written by historians
| and archaeologists speculating about Roman dodecahedrons.
| That's where most of these ideas are coming from.
|
| You just won't find them in HN comments for obvious
| reasons.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| it could be coincidence, since people with metal detectors
| looking for coins find them. there could perhaps be more, but
| not where coin searching with metal detectors is common?
| bee_rider wrote:
| That's a neat idea.
|
| > "It is an example of very fine craftsmanship, finished to a
| high standard."
|
| Nice, if there's an afterlife that guy is probably beaming
| right now, haha.
| saalweachter wrote:
| https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/after-2
| subsubzero wrote:
| So basically its just leetcode interview testing but for metal
| workers :)
| gedy wrote:
| More like a take home project.
| Levitz wrote:
| Maybe in some 2.000 years digital archeologists will wonder
| what in the world did we use fizzbuzz for
| Aardwolf wrote:
| Wait until they unearth fizzbuzz enterprise edition...
| klntsky wrote:
| Or monkey NFTs
| someuser2345 wrote:
| I'm currently alive, and I still don't know what they're
| used for.
| layer8 wrote:
| That wouldn't really explain why the holes have different sizes
| on different sides, and why some of the dodecahedrons were
| found in wealthy women's graves.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Maybe all of those variations are ways to demonstrate
| mastery, like asymmetry of all the holes might demonstrate a
| certain skill.
|
| I don't have an opinion of the overall hypothesis.
| tempestn wrote:
| Seems like a wealthy person's toy/puzzle to me. Maybe it came
| with a set of wooden balls to fit into the holes.
| layer8 wrote:
| That doesn't explain why it was predominantly found in
| military locations.
| tarikjn wrote:
| The equivalent today would be 3Dbenchy boats -- "we found an
| identical boat toy design in multiple sites made of different
| plastic materials, colors and sizes. It is spread universally
| around the World cities, found in sites of crafts, leading us
| to believe it is an idol of a new 21st century religion
| predominant among workers of the arts and crafts"
| pinko wrote:
| Along these lines, if you haven't ever seen it, check out
| _Motel of the Mysteries_ by David Macaulay. (Yes, that David
| Macaulay!)
| hiatus wrote:
| A Canticle For Leibowitz touches on a similar theme.
| ojo-rojo wrote:
| I agree. I started with Anathem then went to A Canticle
| for Leibowitz. Together they were a fun read, I've put
| them both on my bookshelf.
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| I remember "reading" that as a kid, when I was too young to
| really understand the text, and thinking it was a horror
| story.
| bertil wrote:
| "Also --and this didn't make sense to us either-- it doesn't
| float, and there's no engine. Our best guess is that it's
| meant as a comment on the fulity of life."
| p1mrx wrote:
| You can make Benchy float by slicing it with solid infill
| in the bottom/rear, and minimal infill everywhere else:
|
| https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6076719
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| 3D printed plastics only last a few centuries. Future
| archeologists are not going to find these in thousands of
| years.
| altairTF wrote:
| In the joke world they will, along with the lost of all
| current knowldge of what the 3D boat is
| nextaccountic wrote:
| In a few decades, 3d printed metals and other long lasting
| materias might be accessible to hobbysts
| felipemnoa wrote:
| Just like the Lenna image used in a lot of Computer Science
| papers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| If you try hard enough you could probably come up with some
| resemblances to male/female parts and thus classify this as
| belonging to a fertility cult.
| s0rce wrote:
| or one of these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/304770714900?chn=ps
| &norover=1&mkevt...
| yetanotherloser wrote:
| I like that theory too and offer a followon explanation: to
| make a dodecahedron you must make an accurate regular pentagon
| and this is not trivial with ancient geometric methods, you
| need to have learned a thing or two to get there. This makes it
| a better test than, say, an icosahedron. But we do know that
| the Roman empire wasn't completely unfamiliar with icosahedral
| dice, probably for a magical or divinatory purpose rather than
| determining whether your wizard made her saving throw.
|
| An analogy to this "masterpiece" theory might be the
| industrial-age "Turner's cube" that demonstrates a pretty solid
| level of ability with a lathe.
| whoopdedo wrote:
| > probably for a magical or divinatory purpose rather than
| determining whether your wizard made her saving throw.
|
| Why should I assume humans playing recreational games is a
| recent invention?
| yetanotherloser wrote:
| Board games are much older than the Romans, though possibly
| not older than writing - and texts give us a bit of a clue
| that some early ones were part recreation part ceremonial.
| By Roman times pure recreational games were common and
| reasonably often referenced in their literature. They
| definitely used cubic dice with numbers on for games (and
| gambling). The icosahedral dice usually have Greek letters
| rather than numbers (occasionally symbols IIRC) which make
| them hard to move a piece to or compare scores; we don't
| seem to find them with game boards like we do "Latrunculi"
| counters; there's no textual support for a game with them
| (weak evidence, true) but there's a fair bit for strong
| interest in divination and oracles that could use them. So
| not a dead cert, but fairly likely for the D20s. Whereas
| when you find a Roman D6, you can be pretty sure it's for
| gaming and/or betting (or a thief's hit points).
| kagakuninja wrote:
| Come now... Saving rolls use icosahedrons. Old-school
| paladins used D12 for hit points, I don't know about 5E.
| yetanotherloser wrote:
| If your DM had you use these icosahedrons for saves...
|
| https://mymodernmet.com/roman-20-sided-icosahedron-dice/
|
| then you really ARE old-school.
| littlekey wrote:
| >probably for a magical or divinatory purpose rather than
| determining whether your wizard made her saving throw.
|
| From a certain point of view these are the same thing
| yetanotherloser wrote:
| I had that possibility in mind, yes :-)
| wddkcs wrote:
| To add onto this, the dodecahedron was considered a
| mystical object, the encapsulation of the highest
| conceivable realm, that of the etheric or eternal. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.math.lsu.edu/art/quantum-
| connections/pythagoras
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| I think the current view of many scholars is that the Roman
| D20s were for gaming use as well, if not primarily for gaming
| use. I would love to see the most recent scholarship on this,
| though. I assume the actual game is somewhat lost to time:
| game rules don't generally get written down in any medium
| that is durable enough to survive thousands of years.
| Duanemclemore wrote:
| The "Turners Cube" of the day.
| lettergram wrote:
| Looks like a good thing to store kindling in for a torch.
|
| Kinda did something similar for fire arrows
| Retric wrote:
| Some of them don't have big holes:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron#/media/File...
| leptons wrote:
| One of those things is not like the others, and is actually
| very much different, so much that I have to wonder if it's
| not some kind of cheap knock-off that isn't actually fit for
| purpose, whatever the purpose was.
| boffinAudio wrote:
| I thought these were thought to be looms for knitting finger
| sections for woollen gloves? I seem to recall someone testing
| this theory and actually producing very well-fitting gloves - and
| each of the holes in the design are a different size, to support
| the different finger-sizes of the customer.
| leptons wrote:
| That's about as valid a guess as any other of the hundreds of
| guesses in this thread, which are probably not valid at all.
|
| There's no reason such a complex and expensive to make object
| would be used for knitting when a simple thing carved out of
| wood would do the same.
| mildchalupa wrote:
| I thought it was determined to be a glove finger knitting
| apparatus.
| busssard wrote:
| thought so too
| Fluorescence wrote:
| Hmm, I'm not convinced.
|
| The only geometry the knitting demonstrations justify is "pins
| around hole". I don't see an argument for the dodecahedron
| shape or the cast metal. A vastly cheaper wooden jig with nails
| would service just as well and offer much better ergonomic
| possibilities, like a handle. The knitting with the finger
| growing inside the dodec looks unhelpful and implausible.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Romans had mass production facilities for some things.
| Possibly gloves. So a durable permanent jig is not an
| unreasonable suggestion.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think the objection is not about unnecessary durability,
| but unnecessary complexity; you don't need so many faces to
| make a glove.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| If the thing was for making gloves, the faces would be
| for different finger sizes.
| lproven wrote:
| The holes in them _are_ of different sizes.
| ertian wrote:
| Unnecessary complexity & expense, and if it were part of
| a mass production process you'd expect to find them
| clustered in production centers or something. These are
| found scattered randomly and individually in graves and
| border forts.
| eigenket wrote:
| > The knitting with the finger growing inside the dodec looks
| unhelpful and implausible
|
| There are also examples without the big holes in, which would
| make knitting pretty much impossible.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > There are also examples without the big holes in, which
| would make knitting pretty much impossible.
|
| Gloves for children?
| eigenket wrote:
| See the icosahedron here for example
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron#/media/F
| ile...
| declan_roberts wrote:
| The glove is inverted, the fingers are inserted into the
| holes separately and sewn into the glove using the pins.
|
| When you're done, you take it off and unfold it.
| Grimblewald wrote:
| It was suggested and some old bird even showed it was possible
| to do it, but it was not a complete explanation, especially
| given some variations in designs that made glove making hard.
| Another plausible option is it served as a calendar of sorts.
| Equally mundane explaining the broad distribution.
| thih9 wrote:
| Related, video showing its use in knitting:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76AvV601yJ0
| TSiege wrote:
| I love this idea! Looks like it works brilliantly too
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Even if that's the case, some mystery remains, discussed at
| this point:
| https://youtu.be/76AvV601yJ0?si=JQi4K8w9ZvphZ1wV&t=460
|
| Presumably you'd find similar jigs for finishing the glove
| nearby.
| leptons wrote:
| You also wouldn't need such a complex object for that.
| These things were extremely difficult to cast in the years
| that they were made. It would be far easier to carve a
| similar device out of wood as a glove-making jig.
| creole_wither wrote:
| I don't think knitting existed during the time of Roman
| Britain.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| I love seeing all of the nerdy (and wrong) explanations of it,
| when in reality somebody's grandma took a look at it and said
| "oh that's for sewing gloves".
|
| No mention in the article for this purpose, but sometimes it
| takes a bit for grandma info to reach the researchers.
| meindnoch wrote:
| That's a heartwarming story. Unfortunately it's bullshit.
| mkehrt wrote:
| Roman dodecahedra predate knitting by almost a thousand years.
| The earliest known knitting was from the 11th century
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knitting#History_and_culture),
| while the earliest dodecahedra are from the 2nd century
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron#History)
| anentropic wrote:
| A theory I saw recently suggested that they may have been used to
| hold candles, as night lights (could still have had some
| religious or ritual component too).
|
| The holes all being different diameters would then relate to
| different sized candles being needed to last all night, for
| longer and shorter nights at different times of the year. The
| twelve faces presumably corresponding to 12 months on the Julian
| calendar, which was used from 45 BC - 1582 ("Some Roman
| dodecahedrons date to as early as the first century C.E")
| zilti wrote:
| is CE the same as AD?
| jffry wrote:
| https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=+is+CE+the+same+as+AD%3F+&i.
| ..
| anentropic wrote:
| yes, just a non-Christian way of referring to it apparently
|
| "CE (Common Era) is the secular equivalent of AD (Anno
| Domini)"
| rickcecil wrote:
| CE means "common era" which refers to the same time period
| that AD does, which stands for Anno Domini and means "the
| year of our lord," which is rooted in the Christian faith.
|
| You will also see "BCE" and it means Before Common Era, which
| replaces BC, which means "Before Christ".
|
| The newer terms are more inclusive.
| gboone wrote:
| > The newer terms are more inclusive.
|
| To me it seems to exclude the only person referenced in the
| original form.
| mc32 wrote:
| You're right. It's the nature of things, being inclusive
| often means excluding an other.
|
| On the other hand I'm glad we've all converted on one
| common reference for dates and don't have one for each
| sphere of influence, cuz then something published in
| China vs Japan vs Taiwan vs Europe and the Americas vs
| Egypt vs... who knows what would be messy.
| KMag wrote:
| > I'm glad we've all converted on one common reference
| for dates
|
| At least most places that use other calendars also keep
| track of the Western year in parallel.
|
| My Thai wife was born 543 years after me, even though we
| were born in the same year. ("Hi, this is my wife, from
| the future!") Our wedding certificate contains only the
| Thai year. As I remember, for official purposes, Japan
| counts years of the current emperor's reign, along with
| an official name for each reign.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| We never canceled other religious names in our calendar,
| including the months named after Roman gods or the days of
| the week named after Nordic / Celtic gods.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The problem becomes more evident if you write the meaning
| out in full: "anno domini nostri Christi", or the year of
| our lord Christ. Recognizing Jesus Christ as lord
| obviously presents some theological issues to non-
| christians. Saying Wednesday doesn't have the same issue
| of recognizing Odin's divinity.
| weakfish wrote:
| It's not being "cancelled"
| mnw21cam wrote:
| I quite like Neil deGrasse Tyson's take on this. In
| science, we usually let the person that invented something
| name it. The Christian church invented the current
| calendar, therefore we should accept the name they gave it.
| trackflak wrote:
| "Inclusive" but meaningless.
|
| The Georgian calendar (at least in the numbering of years)
| is a Christian construct, and it therefore makes sense to
| name year 0 after the year of Christ's birth. Whether or
| not one acknowledges his lordship or whatever, you are
| still operating in the Western tradition which is
| impossible to understand without Christianity.
|
| It's just petty power tripping. Some people have that need
| to feel superior by swapping the dating system to something
| meaningless and arbitrary. What makes this era "Common"?
| Presumably the birth of Christ, since that's still when you
| are setting the origin of years. So the rename is utterly
| pointless. It's still A.D and should be referred to as
| such.
|
| I'd have more respect if these revisionists went full
| Jacobin and plonked Year 1 down as some new date, and named
| the calendar after something new.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Yes. "Common Era" instead of "Anno Domini". More religiously
| neutral.
| cityofdelusion wrote:
| It's start date is still a religious event, so I'm not sure
| it's more neutral as much as it's more obfuscating.
| drewcoo wrote:
| It was not exactly methodically chosen by Dionysius
| Exiguus in the 6th century. Mostly to replace
| Diocletian's calendar.
|
| Jesus was most likely born before 1 AD.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Sure, but it's an incredible amount of work to change the
| year numbering, and it's easy to change the word we use
| for the calendar.
|
| The French revolutionaries tried it, and they discovered
| that no matter how much people agree with the idea and
| want to switch in theory, it's really, really hard to do.
|
| Mind you, the French Republican calendar was a LOT of
| changes, all at once. First, they started counting over
| at year 1.
|
| That'd be a big enough change, but they also decided to
| use a calendar with 12 months with nice secular, names,
| each with 3 weeks, where a week had ten days with nice,
| secular names (plus some extra days on the end of the
| year as needed).
|
| That'd be a huge change, but they also decided to switch
| to the decimal system, so a day would have exactly 10
| hours of 100 minutes each. And that turned out to just be
| way too much, and the whole thing fell over.
|
| Anyway, that's kind of tangential to your point, but I
| just like thinking about the French Republican calendar.
| I hope you have a happy 4th of Pluviose, Ere Republicain
| 232.
| bregma wrote:
| Yes. It's the plain English version of "AD", which is Latin.
| English was good enough for Jesus in the Bible to speak, so
| it should be good enough for the rest of us instead of this
| high-falutin' shibboleth language they only teach at the
| likes of Oxford and Cambridge.
| mc32 wrote:
| Uhhhhm my high school had it as an elective, and it was no
| Oxbridge school. Over the last few decades Latin has been
| defunded though.
| cityofdelusion wrote:
| The plain English is "in the year of our Lord", if anyone
| else is confused with the dripping sarcasm.
| anentropic wrote:
| OTOH:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron#/media/File...
|
| it's interesting that one has no holes but varying sized corner
| knobs instead, and 20 faces instead of 12
|
| the objects seem related, but the purpose of the latter can't
| have anything to do with candles presumably
| drewcoo wrote:
| 20 faces and 12 verts is an icosahedron.
|
| Both have 30 edges.
|
| Geometry magic?
| jcranmer wrote:
| The icosahedron and dodecahedron are duals of one another:
| each vertex of one corresponds to a face of the other and
| vice versa. All convex polyhedra satisfy the property that
| V + F = E + 2, and since the dual polyhedron conserves the
| quantity V + F, consequently, dual polyhedra have the same
| number of edges.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| This internet ... I had only to wonder if someone had created a
| 3D model of one, search, and I hath found (first hit):
|
| https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/roman-dodecahedron-235a956d1...
| Towaway69 wrote:
| Thanks for sharing.
|
| It shows that the holes had various sizes and it could also
| possible be that they had lids to vary the hole sizes.
|
| Edit: sorry didn't read original comment. But various hole
| sizes could also make it a toy where a child had to figure
| out which fits to the object inside... Hm. Maybe not but hey!
| krisoft wrote:
| > The holes all being different diameters would then relate to
| different sized candles being needed to last all night, for
| longer and shorter nights at different times of the year.
|
| I don't know. There are stranger things of course, but why
| would you care about that? If you need light you just burn the
| candle until you no longer need the light. If it gets too short
| you get a new candle. If you no longer need light (for example
| because the sun has risen) you put it out.
|
| Having a bunch of candles with different thicknesses, and a
| complicated and presumably expensive tool to measure them does
| not feel like the way to go forward.
| Loughla wrote:
| Could still hold, though. Rich people need things to spend
| money on to indicate wealth and status. Arbitrarily difficult
| candle holder seems like it might check that box pretty well.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Candles have been used as timers (stick a nail in a correctly
| sized candle and it'll fall at the right time). But I heard
| of that in regards to the colonial era US, no idea how far
| back it goes.
|
| Edit:
|
| > The candle clock is an ancient technology. The first
| recorded reference was in 520 CE in a Chinese poem by You
| Jiangu. He described six uniform candles of equal weight and
| thickness--each 12 inches tall.
|
| https://mymodernmet.com/candle-clock-alarm/#
| berkes wrote:
| But then the versions found would have to be the same size.
| Which they are not, according to the article.
| godshatter wrote:
| The pegs do seem to lend themselves to steadying the object on
| a flat surface, placing one side up and one side down. This
| would make it easier for standing something up on the top side
| like a candle or letting something on the bottom side through
| (not sure what).
|
| If this were a candle holder, then it doesn't make a lot of
| sense. Wouldn't a candle just slip through to the bottom side,
| losing much of it's length inside the dodecahedron? It also
| doesn't do anything to help if the wick gets too long and the
| wax runs down the side. The variations on diameter of the holes
| makes me wonder if it wasn't a stand for a pole of some kind to
| stand upright. The different diameters of the internal holes
| would correspond to different sizes of poles to hold up. Maybe
| it's a flag holder or something similar?
| throwway120385 wrote:
| If it's for a night light, you might want the light to go out
| while you sleep but before the candle is completely burned.
| You could save money on candles that way.
| otteromkram wrote:
| I was reading a comment up about them being a masterpiece (eg -
| final exam project before graduating apprenticeship), but the
| geographic distribution made me think they could be hand
| warmers, bed warmers, or room warmers. Like, light something
| and "hang" it in the middle.
|
| But, I like this theory, too, so it has my support.
| nemo wrote:
| Romans used oil lamps for lighting generally, they had dipped
| tallow candles but the only uses we've seen of them in the
| imperial era are ritual use at altars, and dip candle use was
| generally later than the period the dodecahedra come from. The
| use of tallow dip candles that look something like a modern
| candle for illumination was adopted later than these artifacts,
| and those candles weren't well quality controlled, you can find
| images of them from the 500s, there's no apparent
| standardization on size.
| scottmsul wrote:
| Having given my brother a Tungsten cube once for Christmas, it's
| possible they just made these because they were fun and looked
| cool.
| dejj wrote:
| It's obvious: xkcd Voynich Manuscript.
|
| https://xkcd.com/593/
| NL807 wrote:
| I used to invent gibberish languages and writing as a kid.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Of course, it is a joke, but... RPG books are generally
| written to be comprehensible to the people running the game.
| Or at least, that is the goal.
| da_chicken wrote:
| Clearly you've never played Shadowrun.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| That's the intent, but boy oh boy, is that not always the
| result.
| peterpost2 wrote:
| Metals were very resource and labour intensive to make in those
| days, I don't think there was much making these for laughs and
| giggles. That also would would not explain why they are only
| found in the colder parts of the roman empire.
| readyplayernull wrote:
| > A huge amount of time, energy and skill was taken to create our
| dodecahedron, so it was not used for mundane purposes
|
| That's the idea! Being difficult to make increases its value, it
| doesn't need to have a special purpose, it could be just a desk
| toy, a sort of mental puzzle, a showcase object of their current
| technology.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, fidget spinner was my second thought as to the "utility"
| of the thing.
| Ekaros wrote:
| There were rich people around. And they can pay for something
| that is essentially art.
| pwillia7 wrote:
| Why wouldn't it just be a 12 sided die for gambling?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I think they would have mentioned if 1) each face had a
| different symbol of some sort and 2) if the knobs showed signs
| of having been tumbled upon.
| Fluorescence wrote:
| I quite like this and could imagine the expense of the object
| was because it signified an officially taxed and legal gambling
| operation or something.
|
| However, I think we might we would see some wear if they they
| were die. Might see some blobs dented or knocked off if they
| were regularly being rolled in taverns and such.
| TrueSlacker0 wrote:
| It could be a symbol of gambling status, such that by having
| one your money is acceptable thus allowing entry to certain
| gambling facilities all over the place.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| They had no wear and tear. A die that expensive would be used
| every 10 seconds for decades.
| leblancfg wrote:
| Casting this would be really hard; if that were the case you'd
| _also_ have expected to have way more versions of it in wooden
| (or other similar easy to fabricate) form.
|
| Plus, grapefruit-sized feels like way too big for this purpose.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Sure, but rich people love to gamble. Rich Romans even more
| so. And we all know how much rich people love blowing their
| money on meaningless status symbols. This is honestly the
| highest probability IMO.
| amock wrote:
| If it's for gambling, why isn't it mentioned anywhere? Why
| are there no mentions of games using these devices?
| Torkel wrote:
| Pet theory:
|
| With future advances in material analysis science we will be able
| to sift through the soil surrounding artefacts as this, and
| understand and digitally reconstruct what soft materials were
| around it.
|
| This folows a trend where as time progresses we are able to
| deduce more and more information from archeological finds.
|
| As this progresses, there will be step changes in our
| understanding of our pre-historical past.
| PcChip wrote:
| People back then loved their cats just as much as we do, maybe
| it's just a cat toy
| NL807 wrote:
| there are small versions of this that would be too tight for
| cats
| Towaway69 wrote:
| Think big cat, tiger toy! Perhaps there was a bell inside or
| marble to make a sound...
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Another armchair idea, could they have been used to detect coin
| clipping?
|
| It seems so easy to test that I feel the idea must have some
| readily apparent flaw.
| scottmsul wrote:
| But why would it be a dodecahedron and not just a metal plate
| with a hole in it? Seems overkill.
| koromak wrote:
| Some of them don't have any holes
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I'll admit to knowing little, but the Wikipedia article says
| they all have
|
| >... twelve flat pentagonal faces, each face having a
| circular hole of varying diameter in the middle, the holes
| connecting to the hollow center.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Previously on HN:
|
| What were these Roman objects used for?
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25237271
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _The mysterious dodecahedrons of the Roman Empire_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35937540 - May 2023 (100
| comments)
|
| _No one is certain what Roman bronze dodecahedrons were used
| for (2018)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29717215 -
| Dec 2021 (207 comments)
|
| _What were these Roman objects used for?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25237271 - Nov 2020 (37
| comments)
|
| _The Mysterious Bronze Objects That Have Baffled
| Archaeologists for Centuries_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21439351 - Nov 2019 (7
| comments)
| cubefox wrote:
| > "Roman society was full of superstition," writes the Norton
| Disney group. "A potential link with local religious practice is
| our current working theory. More investigation is required,
| though."
|
| That's funny. I think I stopped believing in God as a kid because
| in all the historical articles I read, it was clear that the
| people of the past just believed in superstition. It obviously
| follows that our current religions are also superstitions.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Mine came from realizing all of the religions have the same
| basic stories all credited to their deity as the cause, yet all
| saying the other deities didn't exist or were false gods.
| cubefox wrote:
| Ah yes, that's the other good point. Really they are parts of
| the more general incoherency: "My religion is correct, while
| all the other religions, current or from the past, are mere
| superstition."
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Then there's my favorite, Pascal's Wager: "Why not accept
| my particular God? What do you have to lose?" Advocates of
| the Wager never seem to consider what Zeus's opinion might
| be.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Your assumption is that the advocates of the Wager give a
| damn about Zeus to be begin with which seems flawed to
| me.
| me_me_me wrote:
| in this case, anything that archeologists cant explain is
| either religious or a cultural artifact.
|
| Meaning: 'We don't really know what that is.'
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| I'm not religious either, but I don't think the logic holds up.
| Philosophers and scientists of the past came to all kinds of
| ridiculous conclusions, but it doesn't follow that
| utilitarianism or atomic theory are ridiculous.
| cubefox wrote:
| I think these theories were always more sophisticated than
| religions. And the work of ancient philosophers is still not
| completely outdated, e.g. Aristotle's logic holds up, albeit
| in a limited domain. Moreover, the former theories have since
| further increased in sophistication, while religion didn't
| get significantly more sophisticated.
|
| Though I admit your point is a good one and not so easily
| refuted. In general it is known as the "pessimistic meta-
| induction": Theories from the past were wrong, so we should
| think our current theories are wrong as well. See
|
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism-theory-
| change/#Di...
|
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-
| realism/#PessI...
| blah-yeah wrote:
| My guess:
|
| Wax, wooden, or cork plates plugged into each side via the large
| holes.
|
| On the the replaceable plates were some sort of painted or
| engraved label, indicating something such as:
|
| - a dice or other game piece
|
| - a fortune or God (some other mythical image)
|
| - some other game of chance type option
| prirun wrote:
| It's a model of the coronavirus.
| jmpman wrote:
| I think it's part of surveying equipment for a construction site.
| bee_rider wrote:
| For some reason that was what my mind jumped to, but the
| details seem odd. Apparently some were notched between the
| knobs, so it seems useful for measuring... and you could
| imagine eyeballing lots of angles by lining up the knobs in
| various ways. Maybe even putting a string across some knobs and
| looking through the hole.
|
| But why holes of all different sizes? And it seems weirdly
| difficult to make a right angle.
| oliwarner wrote:
| Is this not the Githyanki artefact?
| matthewfelgate wrote:
| Dungeons and Dragons dice.
| coding123 wrote:
| Just because it's not a standard size does not mean it's not a
| measuring device. Angles, Pythagorean helper tool, construction
| of archways... We have so many modern tools that come in lots of
| sizes.
| Beijinger wrote:
| Mysterious? I thought this is a solved problem. Especially also
| taking into account the boarders of the Roman Empire and the
| places where they were found.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76AvV601yJ0
| eyabs wrote:
| Knitting gloves. Neat. I like that idea. Especially since they
| were only found in the colder regions of the Roman Empire.
| SamBam wrote:
| That's a hypothesis, certainly not a solved problem. There in't
| any other evidence for it, besides someone finding that it
| could kind of work, and some inference about where it was
| found.
|
| Currently there's no explanation for why it needs to be this
| very-hard-to-cast bronze dodecahedron, instead of just a wooden
| board with pegs and holes, which is all that would be needed
| for the video above.
|
| Evidence might involve finding contemporary descriptions of
| these, bills of sales, descriptions of Romans wearing knitted
| gloves, etc.
| ertian wrote:
| Based on previous discussions, I don't think so. If they're
| really for knitting gloves you'd expect to find a lot of
| standard 'adult hand' sized dodecahedrons along with a few
| large & small (if that), but in fact you find a whole range of
| sizes (from tiny to gigantic), with far fewer mediums than
| you'd expect. They don't cluster around commercial towns: were
| people really knitting most gloves in border forts? They'd have
| been very expensive and difficult to produce; it wouldn't make
| sense for a master metalworker to spend weeks working on a
| trinket for knitting gloves when it could just as easily be
| made from wood for a fraction of the cost & effort. IIRC, they
| don't all have the knobs & holes, or they're oddly sized, and
| generally they're pretty nonstandard. You find them included in
| wealthy burials: were these rich people really knitting their
| own gloves--along with soldiers on the front lines? Why would
| they be buried with a knitting tool specifically for gloves?
|
| Altogether, it seems pretty unlikely they were an aid to
| knitting gloves.
| leptons wrote:
| This video is mentioned multiple times in this thread and it's
| got to be the most ridiculous take for what these things are.
|
| These were expensive and difficult to cast. They are made of
| metal which is very expensive at the time. There's no reason
| knitting would require a complex metal cast object of this kind
| when a wooden jig would be far easier and cheaper to produce.
| CrzyLngPwd wrote:
| It's a dog toy. Put treats in it, and the dog will spend hours
| nudging it around trying to get the tasty treats out :-p
|
| Seriously though, it's obviously for measuring out spaghetti.
| ysofunny wrote:
| it's a human toy. ask what it is for and the humans will spend
| hours arguing about what purpose does it serve
|
| I heard it was used to knit gloves somehow
| RajT88 wrote:
| This must have been the inspiration for the dodecahedrons in the
| show "Raised by Wolves". Lots of influence from Roman history and
| mythos (and a bunch of other places).
| astro- wrote:
| Not the most credible theory, but it reminds me of the "Hedgehog
| in the cage" mechanical puzzle:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog_in_the_Cage
|
| So maybe there's a wooden/metal piece that goes inside, and the
| challenge is to get it out?
| layer8 wrote:
| This video gives a good overview over different explanations and
| why they were dismissed: https://youtu.be/BNrhlQE-EMg?t=30s
| nmacias wrote:
| Based on the polished rib bone / leatherwork precedent, I am
| going to presume these were fabric-softening dryer balls.
| yzydserd wrote:
| For those in the UK, the BBC show Digging for Britain recently
| covered the discovery of this artefact in S11E04 at the 30min
| mark, available on iPlayer.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001ttqr
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| Maybe a caltrop for 8-dimensional horses
| mrobvioussays wrote:
| Kids' toy. (Imagine something jingling/rattling inside)
| LouisSayers wrote:
| To me it looks like a paperweight / scroll holder.
|
| The knobs are possibly for holding keys or other such items.
|
| Perhaps it's an administration tool - used in hotels or for the
| army when they've received news.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| The protruding nubs are clearly to ensure an air gap when it's
| pressed against some surface, for whatever that runs through
| the holes (such as rope) to be able to slide in/out without
| pinching.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| Which makes sense for paper, because if a table surface gets
| wet then you don't want the bottom of the scrolls touching a
| wet table.
|
| Also if you have different sized holes you can rotate the
| device to have the most used holes facing upwards.
| bhewes wrote:
| They look like anchors for fishing nets.
| swamp40 wrote:
| If they are important, they should appear in drawings, paintings,
| carvings, statues, etc.
|
| Someone should really be searching in these areas.
| kypro wrote:
| I wonder if anyone is AI for stuff like this? You could fairly
| easily train a model to look through a huge number of
| historical resources for potential visual matches to review.
| mkl wrote:
| Every old drawing, painting, carving, statue, etc., is eagerly
| pored over by historians of that era. Roman historians know
| about these dodecahedrons and would recognise them if they
| appeared.
| riffic wrote:
| prototype Lament Configuration
| bumblebeast wrote:
| I thought it was a tool to make fingers for gloves.
| dpflan wrote:
| There is no mention in Roman/Latin texts anywhere of this
| particular object, it's quite a specific thing...? Some merchant
| probably sold it and had an inventory...right?
| stevenwoo wrote:
| They mention this in the article - one line of the reasoning is
| that the lack of mention lends a little evidence to a non
| Christian religious or folklore practice that would have made a
| written record forbidden or liable to destruction by
| authorities.
| hosh wrote:
| I remember seeing someone's demo of using them for knitting.
|
| Absent any better explanation, this seems pretty reasonable to
| me.
|
| Example video: https://youtu.be/76AvV601yJ0?si=7qk7VWBHJnxubs1j
| q1w2 wrote:
| I like the idea that there is some sort of thread manipulation
| going on here, but the videos using this for knitting don't
| require it to be a dodecahetdron as they only use one hole and
| five of the bulbs on the verteces.
|
| Unless there's a much more complex knit happening, this isn't
| the explanation. Maybe with multiple colors or something. Also,
| if it were used in this common way, it's more likely that there
| would have been many more made of wood and the device would
| have passed down from mother to daughter rather than having
| been lost.
| mkehrt wrote:
| This is a theory that keeps coming up on the internet. However,
| roman dodecahedra predate knitting by almost a thousand years.
| The earliest known knitting was from the 11th century
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knitting#History_and_culture),
| while the earliest dodecahedra are from the 2nd century
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron#History)
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| yarn rots
| naltroc wrote:
| duh it's the prime radiant
| FredPret wrote:
| Can a metallurgist weigh in on this? That casting looks really
| good to me.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Did people not just buy things for decoration in the Roman
| empire? Seems like we try to attach deep meaning to everything
| discovered in older civilizations. When many could just have some
| mundane meaningless purpose like decoration.
|
| Imagine the poor future people that seek to find meaning in the
| unearthed funko pops and gold spray painted pine cones of our
| time.
|
| Reminds me of the guy that buried flaming hot cheetos in an
| elaborate coffin
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6_C7z4XvOQ
| gigglesupstairs wrote:
| Yeah, someone probably made it out of passion once, others
| liked it so much they offered him lot of money or fame, the art
| proliferated. Some artists created similar models, some
| modified on top of it.
| stevage wrote:
| Yes they made decorative objects, but those objects were
| written about and depicted in art. these aren't.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Respectfully, I find it hard to believe that every decorative
| object was in turn immortalized in art, that seems pretty
| recursive.
| stevage wrote:
| Not _every object_ but _every type of object_. There have
| been hundreds of these things, and none of them have been
| depicted elsewhere, nor described in writing that has
| survived.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Am totally imagining a futurama episode where everyone is trying
| to figure out what purpose the dodecahedron was created for and
| then Fry walks in and explains it was just a mass produced junk
| art like "live, laugh, love" made by Crate and Barrel.
| labster wrote:
| Same here, but with Centrurion Rory Williams doing the
| explaining in Doctor Who.
| NFVLCP wrote:
| 1. glove knitting
|
| The dodecahedron Wikipedia article already mentions spool
| knitting [1]. This awesome video shows knitting for different-
| sized fingers on a 3d-printed replica [2]. An initial question
| could be whether 6 equally-sized holes align with each other, or
| if there are 12 different hole sizes for finer sizing options
| (hard to tell from internet images). And as for no wear on the
| tool, hardness of wool << metal. It's not as if the dodecahedron
| is being used as a pulley block.
|
| 2. Hair braiding
|
| layer8 mentioned these dodecahedrons being found in wealthy
| women's graves; I'd offer they could have been for braiding hair
| -- seemed important to wealthy Roman women back then [3].
|
| Speculative scenario:
|
| Could sit in a chair with back to a table (or just lie down on
| the floor), with hair strands laid outward from the person's
| head. Selected strands are pulled through the dodecahedron tool,
| and braided. The dodecahedron tool moves incrementally away from
| the person's head as the braid forms. The knobs on the top-side
| help organize each strand, and the knobs on the reverse (bottom)
| side creates standoff for the braided hair to emerge. Hands-free
| tool for making perfect mini-braids.
|
| I wonder if some statues might be realistic enough to depict
| braids [4] (and from similar time periods as dodecahedrons'
| manufacture date) to match with a 5- or 10-strand sinnet pattern
| (e.g., ABOK#3037) [5].
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron#Purpose
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/76AvV601yJ0&t=517 | from:
| https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/514246/are-roman-dodecah...
|
| [3] https://unpodipepe.ca/2017/01/31/hairstyling-ancient-roma/
|
| [4]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_hairstyles#/media/File:K...
|
| [5]
| https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Ashley_Book_of_Knot...
| dejj wrote:
| What if we "under-feather"[1] them, like dinosaurs? Then
| dodecahedrons could be just the skeleton of the actual tool.
|
| Does the spacing of the knobs allow hinging wooden elements
| like on a Rubik's cube?
|
| [1]
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230726232243/https://www.atlas...
| dumpsterdiver wrote:
| It seems like the location these are generally found in could
| offer clues. If they were blacksmith related I would expect them
| to be found closer to the buildings where they would be used or
| stored. If they're for a military related purpose (approximating
| distances) then I would expect to find them more alongside roads,
| and strategically relevant places. Thoughts?
| mattmezza wrote:
| There's a real chance the Roman dodecahedron could have been the
| "fidget spinner" of Roman Empire...
| jakubmazanec wrote:
| How much Roman writing has survived? If this item was so common,
| it's strange that it isn't mentioned more in literature.
| stevage wrote:
| Quite a lot.
| arp242 wrote:
| Lots of stuff isn't mentioned in writing. Combine the "Why
| would I write that down, everyone already knows that?"-effect
| with "most people weren't literate" and lots of banal every-day
| stuff like this gets lost in time.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| It looks like a desk toy to me.
| haunter wrote:
| I like the security device theory: it's a bag lock or something
| like that and rope(s) was going through of it in a certain
| pattern. So couldn't be tampered with.
| bimguy wrote:
| Not sure about "grapefruit-sized" when compared to the hand
| holding the object in the picture. Assuming it's the one they are
| writing about. I'd say it's closer to the size of a lime. Unless
| that person has a uniquely large hand of course.
|
| Really interesting find though, never heard of these artefacts
| before.
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