A mysterious Roman object unearthed in an amateur dig has baffled experts as it goes on display in Britain for the first time.
The 12-sided object was discovered in Norton Disney, near Lincoln, in 2023, and will go on display at Lincoln Museum as part of the city’s Festival of History.
Richard Parker, secretary of the Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group, said it was a “privilege to have handled” the dodecahedron, but was still at a loss over what it was.
First thing that pops into my head is that it was used to lash poles together for tents, awnings, military banners, etc. I am no doubt wrong. But for some reason I think they would work nicely for that purpose, and make the whole kit portable and easy to set up and tear down.
That might actually have been a good guess.
I’d go with some sort of game- like jumping jacks, maybe. Or some sort of weird bocce ball.
My immediate thought was that it was just some kinda ancient fad, like fidget spinners.
Why make such a complicated ass shape when a rope or thong of leather would serve the same end?
Also, they’re commonly found stored with people’s valuables - coin stashes, jewelry, etc. They were clearly valuable. Many of them don’t appear to have any wear on them either, so if they had a utilitarian use it likely didn’t involve lashing stuff together.
My guess is just a good luck charm type of thing. The Romans had a lot of those.
Around those times wasn’t anything manufactured entirely of non-lead metal kind of valuable? I don’t think this rules out the knitting functionality either. To this day people still hand down things like simple hand crank sewing machines in their dowry boxes as tradition from the past when those were family heirlooms
They weren’t cave men, they had plenty of metal stuff.
These dodecahedra are vastly over-complicated for “utilitarian” uses. As Boinkage says, if you need something for fastening some ropes together just to lash stuff, why use an intricate forging like this? All those knobs, the complex hollow shape, the variously-sized holes, those are features that took a lot of work to add. If it’s a utilitarian piece then those features need to be for something. Otherwise we’d be finding examples of simpler versions that lacked those features.
The “they could be for knitting glove fingers” idea, for example, could be just as easily done using a hunk of wood with five nails driven into it.
Erector bobs
“The imagination races when thinking about what the Romans may have used it for. Magic, rituals or religion - we perhaps may never know.”
Yes, magic, ritual, or religion—the only conceivable purposes for anything archeologists can’t immediately identify.
Just like how the figurines of busty ladies are used for “fertility rituals.” I think they were just prehistoric porn.
And by immediately you mean hundreds of people working full time for decades trying to figure it out.
It didn’t take them decades to come up with the idea that they were for magical use, it took them decades to fail to arrive at a better consensus.
It took them decades to thoroughly and methodically rule out other explanations to make sure their initial estimation is accurate.
Archeologists are highly educated professionals that spends a lot of time and effort into research. I don’t know why you want to portray them as bumbling idiots that make shit up when they dont know.
He’s saying that archaeologists have a tendency to grandiously assign religious or ceremonial purposes to uncovered objects when they should start with mundane purposes first. This object looks like a dice. Therefore, the first potential purpose should be a dice, not a mystical device to contact the Goa’uld.
a dice
“A die”. “Dice” is the plural.
I’m not portraying archaeologists as making shit up—I’m saying people in general jump to “magic rituals” when archaeologists can’t provide a definitive answer. The person quoted was explicitly speculating, not providing a professional opinion.
I think they’re dice.
Obviously you’re supposed to put it in your ass
My completely uneducated guess would be some sort of test piece for new smiths. Or a Thneed.
This is my guess. Kinda like making a cube on a lathe is a test for machinists, and making a captive cube within a hollow cube is a more advanced version.
DO NOT SOLVE THE PUZZLE
Cause the puzzle’s in pieces again, demons become angels to some
Ok I got a theory and I think it’s a good one. I would say that’s a measuring tool, like an ancient tape measure, or at least I think I could use it for that. If you chose a zero knob, roll it a certain way, and know how to read the knob it finishes at, you can measure something pretty fast, the holes tells you which knob you are at and measure the fractional part to a 1/12 of the knob distance precision. It certainly must have a bit of a learning curve though.
I actually wonder if this is a coin sorter to help count money of various sizes
multifaceted cock rings
Those Romans… they knew how to party.
It’s obviously a strawberry planter.
Why does it have to have a use? Someone might have wanted to make one such thing because they found the geometry/crafts of it interesting and entertaining.
Strictly speaking, it doesn’t. But this isn’t a “one of” thing, numerous examples of them have been found throughout Europe. It’s been awhile since I’ve read about them, but in some instances, they’ve been found in situations that imply they had some kind of special value or significance to their owners.
And at the end of the day “use” is pretty open ended. Even if they were considered art pieces, made while training to build other things, some unknown religious decoration, or just a status symbol – that’s all still a use.
I find the antikythera mechanism much more baffling!!
Why is it baffling? We already know what it does. If anything it should be a source of admiration of the skill needed to design and build such a device. I can’t find it right now but someone took the time to rebuild one with only hand tools proving that it could be done accurately by hand and not some mysterious technology.
The only people wanting you to be baffled are the ones trying to clickbait you into visiting their site for views.
Edit It’s Clickspring on youtube (thank you @HejMedDig@feddit.dk)
It’s Click spring that is in a very long process of building a replica
I like to think they’re just random tchotchkes that an artist made to sell. Like random doodads you might put on your desk that have no function or reason to exist other than for its aesthetic appeal, and mass produced for someone to make a buck on.
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