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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

#371

Post by qingcharles »

s0rce wrote: post #294
tarikjn wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

or one of these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/304770714900?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt...

That seems exceptionally cheap for the work that went into it?

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#372

Post by hammyhavoc »

qingcharles wrote: post #370
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She actually showed up to an IEEE conference once, I think, in the late '90s, or early aughts.

She did indeed. Someone finally tracked her down recently. She's kinda over all the fuss :p

Any anecdotes about the conference? Did it surprise people?

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#373

Post by taneq »

wirrbel wrote: post #14
taneq wrote: post #5

One theory (albeit contested) is that they were used as a jig to knit gloves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76AvV601yJ0

> 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

Are prior methods 'not knitting' the way that most insects aren't technically 'bugs' (ie. a technical difference but still largely the same idea)? I find it hard to believe that anatomically modern humans have been around for allegedly 200+k years and yet didn't figure out "making cloth out of knots" until around 1500 years ago.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#374

Post by s0rce »

qingcharles wrote: post #371
s0rce wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or one of these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/304770714900?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt...

That seems exceptionally cheap for the work that went into it?

Magic of Eastern European manufacturing, can probably turn them out in not too much time.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#375

Post by gerdesj »

bimguy wrote: post #340
gerdesj wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite. I suspect the narrator might have confused grapefruit with satsuma - easy to do if you ignore size and colour ... morphology and a few other things but all citrus so all good. Much better to stick with silly old normal and sensible measurements. This thing is roughly 0.9 linguine across - https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-conver... Standards are important, that's why we have so many of them…

Hahaha. I've never seen this standards page before. I work in Australia's building industry so I find this page particularly enjoyable. Thank you for sharing the page and your sharp wit with me.

Those "standards" were the result of long forum threads back in the day. Some of the discussions are hilarious.

Did you spot the Other units are links, eg: https://www.theregister.com/2016/10/25/oz_trams_equivalent_t... Searching the Register for other keywords should yield some gems.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#376

Post by nemo »

anthk wrote: post #360
nemo wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>spoke the same Latin, It depends.

* yes, roughly the same Latin, and only in N. Africa & the Western European provinces, not the eastern provinces

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#377

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #372
qingcharles wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She did indeed. Someone finally tracked her down recently. She's kinda over all the fuss :p

Any anecdotes about the conference? Did it surprise people?

There is this: http://www.lenna.org

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#378

Post by CamperBob2 »

s_m_t wrote: post #336
CamperBob2 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would Zeus care? The greek afterlife is a sort of pointless outcome to Pascal's wager so it isn't even worth factoring in.

Why would Zeus care?

Well, once you start asking questions like that, the whole thing starts to unravel. Just play along, don't rock the boat.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#379

Post by sethrin »

imglorp wrote: post #143
lithos wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

It's not persuasive, it's impossible. Knitting was unknown to the Romans.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#380

Post by Suppafly »

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 was my immediate thought when I first saw the article about these. The whole 'it was probably something religious' is such a cop out and I can't believe scientists continue to push that anytime they can't explain something.
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