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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

#111

Post by me_me_me »

cubefox wrote: post #70

> “Roman society was full of superstition,” writes the Norton Disney group. “A potential link with local religious practice is our current working theory. More investigation is required, though.” That's funny. I think I stopped believing in God as a kid because in all the historical articles I read, it was clear that the people of the past just believed in superstition. It obviously follows that our current religions…

in this case, anything that archeologists cant explain is either religious or a cultural artifact.

Meaning: 'We don't really know what that is.'

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#112

Post by TSiege »

yreg wrote: post #97
mcphage wrote: post #96

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. Which is why it's significant that none have been found in Rome, or any of the major warmer cities.

Why? This could have been just some local system in that region.

I think you and the poster are in agreement. The significance is that you wouldn't need knitted gloves in Mediterranean climates. So if this was for some other use or as a novelty, you'd expect it evenly distributed throughout the empire

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#113

Post by ToValueFunfetti »

cubefox wrote: post #70

> “Roman society was full of superstition,” writes the Norton Disney group. “A potential link with local religious practice is our current working theory. More investigation is required, though.” That's funny. I think I stopped believing in God as a kid because in all the historical articles I read, it was clear that the people of the past just believed in superstition. It obviously follows that our current religions…

I'm not religious either, but I don't think the logic holds up. Philosophers and scientists of the past came to all kinds of ridiculous conclusions, but it doesn't follow that utilitarianism or atomic theory are ridiculous.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#114

Post by throwup238 »

ragazzina wrote: post #105
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.

Why are they often found in coin hoards then? This makes no sense.

They’ve got a lot of sentimental value to the original owners of those hoards. It actually makes more sense: master blacksmiths were far more likely to be wealthy enough to have coin hoards and considered the objects symbolic of the trade that made that wealth.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#115

Post by happymellon »

throwup238 wrote: post #114
ragazzina wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they often found in coin hoards then? This makes no sense.

They’ve got a lot of sentimental value to the original owners of those hoards. It actually makes more sense: master blacksmiths were far more likely to be wealthy enough to have coin hoards and considered the objects symbolic of the trade that made that wealth.

So it's like a dev who's made themselves some money, getting buried with their C64?

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#116

Post by bee_rider »

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’s a neat idea.

> “It is an example of very fine craftsmanship, finished to a high standard.”

Nice, if there’s an afterlife that guy is probably beaming right now, haha.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#117

Post by chrisco255 »

rickcecil wrote: post #32
zilti wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is CE the same as AD?

CE means “common era” which refers to the same time period that AD does, which stands for Anno Domini and means “the year of our lord,” which is rooted in the Christian faith. You will also see “BCE” and it means Before Common Era, which replaces BC, which means “Before Christ”. The newer terms are more inclusive.

We never canceled other religious names in our calendar, including the months named after Roman gods or the days of the week named after Nordic / Celtic gods.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#118

Post by bondarchuk »

RecycledEle wrote: post #9

Just because a measuring device is not standards referenced does not mean it can not be used to measure. If I need a peg to match the size of a drill bit, any collection of 12 holes is likely to have one the size of the drill bit that lets me tell my peg maker to "make the pegs this size." Handymen are just cussed enough* to not label any of them, and to expect the FNG (new guy) to remember which of the 12 unlabeled…

Furthermore this article only states: “They are not of a standard size, so will not be measuring devices.", which is incorrect since for use as a coincidence rangefinder (standardized to some standard) only the ratios between sizes of opposite holes would need to be standardized, not the size of the thing as a whole.

The paper "Roman Dodecahedron as dioptron: analysis of freely available data" (https://arxiv.org/abs/1206.0946) collects measurements of opposite hole pairs for 7 artefacts for anyone wanting to do their own analysis.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#119

Post by bee_rider »

dejj wrote: post #43
scottmsul wrote: post #28

Having given my brother a Tungsten cube once for Christmas, it's possible they just made these because they were fun and looked cool.

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.

Re: Another Roman dodecahedron has been unearthed in England

#120

Post by timthelion »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #38
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 theory works for me. Making a wooden hammer is a typical first project for the hand-tool woodworker — so perhaps the metal smith had a similar hello world. My first thought was that the thing was some kind of "hub" for ropes used perhaps in some tent design. I was imagining rope loops passing through the holes and then looped over a stud on the other side. But the article says there are no signs of wear and so n…

This is no Hello world, this is more like a doctoral thesis I think...
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