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Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#151

Post by helpfulContrib »

quacker wrote: post #95
tristramb wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Technically, this is not necessarily knitting, its crocheting ..

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#152

Post by pavel_lishin »

bee_rider wrote: post #119
dejj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obvious: xkcd Voynich Manuscript. https://xkcd.com/593/

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.

That's the intent, but boy oh boy, is that not always the result.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#154

Post by throwup238 »

INTPenis wrote: post #69
mrob wrote: post #10

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.

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.

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.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#155

Post by eyabs »

Beijinger wrote: post #141

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

Knitting gloves. Neat. I like that idea. Especially since they were only found in the colder regions of the Roman Empire.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#156

Post by lostlogin »

eigenket wrote: post #102
Fluorescence wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

> There are also examples without the big holes in, which would make knitting pretty much impossible.

Gloves for children?

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#157

Post by amock »

ramesh31 wrote: post #99
leblancfg wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

If it's for gambling, why isn't it mentioned anywhere? Why are there no mentions of games using these devices?

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#158

Post by SamBam »

Beijinger wrote: post #141

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

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.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#159

Post by drewcoo »

anentropic wrote: post #27
anentropic wrote: post #22

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, whi…

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

20 faces and 12 verts is an icosahedron.

Both have 30 edges.

Geometry magic?

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#160

Post by bee_rider »

jmpman wrote: post #89

I think it’s part of surveying equipment for a construction site.

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.

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