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Roman dodecahedrons remain a mystery


Still Waters

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Dating from around 200 AD, the Roman dodecahedron is a small hollow object made of bronze or (more rarely) stone, with a geometrical shape that has twelve flat pentagonal faces, each with a circular hole in the middle. All sides connect into a hollowed center.

Ranging from 4 cm to 11 cm, over 100 of these fascinating looking objects have been found in various European parts of the Roman Empire.

As no classical accounts or narratives seem to mention them, the purpose of this mysterious object remains a puzzling mystery that has confused archaeologists since their first discovery.

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/12/06/roman-dodecahedrons-mysterious-objects-that-have-been-found-across-the-territory-of-the-roman-empire/

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YouTube to the rescue ..

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The Roman Dodecahedron - An ancient mystery solved?

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Quote

 

Published on May 26, 2014

Over 100 of these artefacts have been found across Northern Europe and, dating from around 200 AD, people must have been using them for something useful for there to have been so many made.
I wanted to see what they might have been used for so I got one made with a 3D printer and, well watch to see what they can do :)

 

`

 

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Nice find!

More than one hundred of these artifacts have been found across Great Britain, Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Hungary.

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/12/06/roman-dodecahedrons-mysterious-objects-that-have-been-found-across-the-territory-of-the-roman-empire/

The nippier northern regions of the Empire. So that'd fit.  

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A glove knitting nancy? That's an interesting notion. I have used knitting nancys for cables before, so I understand how it works. However, there is a problem- the size.

The dodechaderons found range in size from 4-11 cm. The one the guy used for the demo would be maxing out that 11 cm or might be a bit larger even, and it only made a child sized set of fingers. So a 4 cm dodechaderon might make a baby sized set of fingers with fine enough floss. If these were good glove knitting nancys- why aren't there any in adult sizes found? Why would you only make fingers for new babies up to children, but not do so for larger people?

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Depends on what was found and what survived til today ... as intriguing as the mystery may be I found the solution presented pretty convincing ... the tiny ones might have been a teaching aid or a sample where reproductions made may have been based on ...

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I though of knitting nancys too (thanks for the word, rashore, I had no idea how these things were called).

Designer-Knitting-Spool-Improve-Fine-Mot

But maybe it wasn't for mittens, maybe it was for ropes of different caliber.

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5 hours ago, rashore said:

A glove knitting nancy? That's an interesting notion. I have used knitting nancys for cables before, so I understand how it works. However, there is a problem- the size.

The dodechaderons found range in size from 4-11 cm. The one the guy used for the demo would be maxing out that 11 cm or might be a bit larger even, and it only made a child sized set of fingers. So a 4 cm dodechaderon might make a baby sized set of fingers with fine enough floss. If these were good glove knitting nancys- why aren't there any in adult sizes found? Why would you only make fingers for new babies up to children, but not do so for larger people?

That is a very good point. And is a problem.

I'm sure I'm going to be rightly corrected, but I would say that Roman sword hilts I've seen are absolutely tiny, as is the only clothing I can recall, which is a ceremonial crocodile skin armour in the British Museum. I'm not sure how much of a difference that would make though. 

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5 minutes ago, oldrover said:

That is a very good point. And is a problem.

I'm sure I'm going to be rightly corrected, but I would say that Roman sword hilts I've seen are absolutely tiny, as is the only clothing I can recall, which is a ceremonial crocodile skin armour in the British Museum. I'm not sure how much of a difference that would make though. 

You mean they were short? 

That's an understatement that average Europeans were quite smaller than nowadays, but they weren't hobbits. 

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No, I meant what I remember seeing was tiny, and I recall being very struck by just how small. And the hilt I particularly remember was carved into an ivory eagle head, so not rank and file, but an officers I'd assume. 

Edited by oldrover
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4 hours ago, oldrover said:

That is a very good point. And is a problem.

I'm sure I'm going to be rightly corrected, but I would say that Roman sword hilts I've seen are absolutely tiny, as is the only clothing I can recall, which is a ceremonial crocodile skin armour in the British Museum. I'm not sure how much of a difference that would make though. 

Roman swords called gladius was what we use to call short swords..
The reason they were short was that they were used for thrusting when fighting in tight formations..
When fighting in formation you cant have a 2 meter long sword you will entangle it with yourself and your companions..
They were not ment to chop of limbs the were made to incapacitate the enemy..

One on one the shord sword is probably not the best weapon but the romans didnt fight one on one they fought as a combined force moving as unit.
just as the vikings were effective using a shieldwall.. shield in left hand sword in right hand.. in tight formations I defend my comrade on the left too and can thrust at my right companions opponent.

The romans had small spears too called pilum that they threw just before inpact with the enemy,
The were not made for killing the opponent they were made for rendering the opponents shield obsolete.
When the enemies shield got hit with the pilum it embedded in the shield and made it heavy and ungainly some people probably dropped it...
The roman soldier used that gap, he drew his shord sword and thrust it forward into his opponent who was standing there with a shield who was heavy tilting down..



1uidshieldwall.jpg

from wikipedia 
Gladius 
 

Length 60–85 cm (24–33 in)

300px-Uncrossed_gladius.jpg

 

Edited by Rofflaren
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Candle holders with holes for different sized candles. Not much of a mystery.

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1 hour ago, Rofflaren said:

sorry for going abit off topic

 

No, not at all it's a wonderful subject. I have a fascination for the Romans, Asterix started it, particularly the latter period, the Villa Culture period of the 4th C and onward. But lack the time to get very far into it at the moment. 

As well as my local Roman history, but again, I lack the time. Even though I live in an are with plenty to learn about. I used to live on a once Roman road, with a military site about 3/4 of a mile up the road. And the site of a sizeable fort with an unusually elaborate (by military standards) bath house a few miles further on. All traces of which have been obliterated by building recently.

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candle holder makes sense to me, but a knitting tool would have been a useful tool. it would be have to be so mundane or ordinary that no one would have ever thought to write about it or reference it in anyway. which means, if it were a knitting device , someone would probably have had to write something down about the tool or why it stopped being used at some point,

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It's a lot precise work for a candle holder though. And why would you go to all that trouble of making something so intricate when you can just melt the base a bit and plonk it anywhere? I think the presence of the little knobs around each of the faces dismisses the idea of a candle holder anyway.

11 hours ago, Athena1979 said:

someone would probably have had to write something down about the tool or why it stopped being used at some point,

Fair point, but so much of what was written is now lost anyway, so we'd have no way of knowing. 

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11 hours ago, Athena1979 said:

candle holder makes sense to me, but a knitting tool would have been a useful tool. it would be have to be so mundane or ordinary that no one would have ever thought to write about it or reference it in anyway. which means, if it were a knitting device , someone would probably have had to write something down about the tool or why it stopped being used at some point,

Oh, I don't know... there are a lot of tools out there that don't have much documentation and stopped being used at some point without there being any documentation about why it stopped being used. Old farm implements, hand tools for various jobs/crafts that folks just don't do by hand anymore.. there's websites for trying to figure out what some of this stuff used to be used for- and they are only within the last couple to few hundred years. A tool a couple thousand years old that might not have had documentation about it to begin with, or documentation about why it stopped being used- or if it did, those documents have been lost- is bound to be more confounding if we already lose track of more modern stuff.

There's also a point of we haven't always been documentation heavy like we are now. Folks didn't really waste scribing efforts to write up user manuals for common objects or tools- now a days a bottle of shampoo comes with written directions. And often, tool use was taught in person by someone that already knew how to use it instead of giving the written theory or instructions.

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