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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

#281

Post by stevage »

flir wrote: post #207
imglorp wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 pre…

Is there any info about where the pieces were found? If they are apprentice pieces there ought to be clues in their found locations.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#282

Post by mkl »

nemo wrote: post #259
mkl wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cultures and traditions are different in different places, even with gigabit internet and ubiquitous literacy.

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…

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".

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#284

Post by stevage »

Towaway69 wrote: post #132
etrautmann wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

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.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#286

Post by wddkcs »

yetanotherloser wrote: post #272
littlekey wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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

I had that possibility in mind, yes :-)

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

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#288

Post by stevage »

wonderwonder wrote: post #240

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 i…

Yes they made decorative objects, but those objects were written about and depicted in art. these aren't.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#290

Post by lazide »

stevenwoo wrote: post #261
atoav wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The article mentions that none of them exhibit wear marks that are characteristic of tools.

Do you think show pieces in rich households would be used?

I’d argue if they did, someone was getting fired immediately.

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