361–370 of 403 posts
I thought it was determined to be a glove finger knitting apparatus.
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 )
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.
Would the royal household also have decorative brass stone masons' chisels, carpenters' planes, doctors' scalpels, and farmers' sickles? I don't really buy that theory. Do we have any other examples of fancy decorative versions of working class tools?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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".
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 lang…
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.
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 purpos…
Does it need anything else besides some kind of protractor and ruler?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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".
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 lang…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think show pieces in rich households would be used? I’d argue if they did, someone was getting fired immediately.
Have we found any other shows pieces for other household items? Because if not, it’s very unlikely that’s the case
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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 y…
This is pretty much how it worked pre-internet
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
> How else would you end up with Latin dialects spoken over a range from Portugal to the Black Sea? Same way we ended with almost everyone in Ireland speaking English as their main language? violent conquest, followed by a brutal subjugation and a cultural genocide.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just like the Lenna image used in a lot of Computer Science papers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna
She actually showed up to an IEEE conference once, I think, in the late '90s, or early aughts.