4 ms·

> Ok but that means there would be more such objects, for every level before mastery right? What levels of mastery? Roman historians didn't write much about t

> Ok but that means there would be more such objects, for every level before mastery right? What levels of mastery? Roman historians didn't write much about the ins and outs of their metalworking industry so we don't know how intricate the process was but apprentices graduating is rather universal (their teachers get tired of them or die eventually, after all). Besides, just because it's an "apprentice piece" doesn't mean that it's made by an amateur, but by a skilled artisan to prove they're ready to go out on their own. > And also such objects would be much more rare. Imagine all the objects that have been found and melted down during the last 2000 years. For us to have found over 100 of these so far is already an indication that it was a lot more common than an apprentice piece. Finding only a hundred of these makes them extremely rare. Check out Wikipedia's non-exhaustive list of museum collections of ancient Roman and Greek artifacts [1]. The collections number in the tens of thousands of objects each and that's just the stuff a few collections felt was worth keeping - there is tons more Roman artifacts on the antiquities market and huge troves are still discovered on a regular basis [2][3]. From [3]: > This guy even got his grubby hands on a Roman dodecahedron, an extremely rare artifact (only 100 are known to exist) whose purpose remains an archaeological mystery to this day. A total of 13,246 artifacts were seized in the raid on his home and from several safety deposit boxes he rented in Lorraine. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_of_Greek_and_Roman_antiquities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_of_Greek_and_R... [2] https://www.ksl.com/article/24751877/10k-roman-artifacts-found-in-lost-london-river https://www.ksl.com/article/24751877/10k-roman-artifacts-fou... [3] https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/60269 https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/60269

INTPenis 3y ago
But you can't really compare any artifact with a metal object, metal was valuable and often melted down. The ones we know about were the ones not found by battlefield scavengers and other opportunists. Even gravediggers would take metal objects and melt them down.
- akiselev 3y ago
  The bulk of artifacts that survive to this day are pottery, jewelry, and metal Roman coins. Two of those three categories were mostly metal objects that could have been melted down but weren't. Collections of Ancient Roman artifacts are full of metal objects that are orders of magnitude more common than these dodecahedrons. We have many more examples of Roman weapons made up of much more valuable metals that survived.

INTPenis 3y ago

But you can't really compare any artifact with a metal object, metal was valuable and often melted down. The ones we know about were the ones not found by battlefield scavengers and other opportunists. Even gravediggers would take metal objects and melt them down.

akiselev 3y ago
The bulk of artifacts that survive to this day are pottery, jewelry, and metal Roman coins. Two of those three categories were mostly metal objects that could have been melted down but weren't. Collections of Ancient Roman artifacts are full of metal objects that are orders of magnitude more common than these dodecahedrons. We have many more examples of Roman weapons made up of much more valuable metals that survived.