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Mystery of ancient Roman dodecahedron baffling experts as it goes on display in UK (www.independent.co.uk)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

70 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Why make such a complicated ass shape when a rope or thong of leather would serve the same end?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

My guess is just a good luck charm type of thing. The Romans had a lot of those.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

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.