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Mystery of ancient Roman dodecahedron baffling experts as it goes on display in UK
(www.independent.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
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I think they're dice.
That is certainly one possibility, although I think the idea that these were some sort of worship object or fortune telling device by the Neoplatonists is the most likely answer, as the dodecahedron was an especially sacred object to them because it was to Plato.
A Midplatonist work attributed to the Timaeus of Plato's dialogues discusses it-
https://iep.utm.edu/midplato/
Neoplatonism was a pretty big deal in the Empire in the third century.
Either that, or the Romans manufactured and buried them in order to confuse people 2000 years later.
The number 12 was really significant to early Mesopotamia and continued on trhu the Roman age. Babylonians used Base12 instead of Base10, gregorian calendar has 12 months, etc
If it was religious in nature, why wouldnt there be any manual or depiction of it in any of the existing art and structures?
IMO, the answer is because it was too mundane, like a shoelace or a paper clip to us. Someone above mentioned as possibly being for tying tent poles and the like together, which is now my new favorite theory 😃
Seems pretty simple to me. Everybody loved to gamble, so they needed to be sturdy, and also big shiny metal trinkets are cool. They have different sized holes to denote the different values of the sides, and the knobbies make them bounce and roll in unexpected ways and keep them from rolling once they come to a rest.
We do have companies like Chessex that make blingy dice for the D&D and tabletop gaming crowd today, I suppose.
I've wondered before whether a similar, but more-rollable looking strange set of artifacts that were also found in Britain might be dice:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carved_stone_balls
Those are far more ancient than Roman artifacts, though.
Actually, on second glance, they do appear to have "numeric" engravings at all the places that might settle facing up or toward you. Very interesting.
Those are actually for butt stuff.
No, but seriously I could see them being used in some sort of "marbles" -type game. Or, like, maybe some kinda twisted mini-croquet.
Dude, I got it! These were the original "tricky" golf balls. Golf probably started as rolling a rock into a hole, but when that got too easy, they started going "bet you can't get that weird shaped one in there," and then that got popular enough that people started making their own.
Of course, there were always the purists that believed the rocks should remain round and the hole should be the thing that moves.
That's why we have golf and mini golf.