Live data from Hacker News

A Roman Glass Gaming Die

christies.com

31–36 of 36 posts

Re: A Roman Glass Gaming Die

#31
post #3

This is as likely a magical object as a gaming die. Glass would have been expensive for a mere gambling device, whereas bone dice were cheap. It's a Platonic solid found in Egypt, the epicenter of Neoplatonism. And the symbols on the sides are astrological.

In Middle Ages and before, games and magic and religion weren't separated. Even mundane games played in taverns were magically bound to your luck and well-being. More sophisticated (board) games were outright sacred and were seen as a way to communicate with gods.

Wiki has several examples from the Bible, casting lots to see what God chooses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleromancy

Re: A Roman Glass Gaming Die

#34
I recognize the symbol ☉ for gold (or sun) on one of the 20 faces, namely a circle with a dot in the middle (encoded in unicode as 2609 or in html as 9737).

Does anybody know what symbols appear on the other 19 faces of this die?

Also, has anybody run a Chi-Square test for determining the fairness of this die??? I wouldn't pay $17,925 for a loaded die.

Post reply on HN