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Or when they find dicks, drawn, sculpted, or otherwise: >it must be a fertility symbol The ancients didn't do dick jokes/humour apparently.
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.
I thought it was determined to be a glove finger knitting apparatus.
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.
There are also examples without the big holes in, which would make knitting pretty much impossible.
One theory (albeit contested) is that they were used as a jig to knit gloves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76AvV601yJ0
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 grandmoth…
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
There were plenty of captured slaves from conquered peoples, but skilled metalworkers would hardly belong to that group.
> “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…