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I like the theory that it's an examination piece to qualify as a master metalworker. Casting a flawless dodecahedron could have been a way to demonstrate your s
by mrob 3y ago
I like the theory that it's an examination piece to qualify as a master metalworker. Casting a flawless dodecahedron could have been a way to demonstrate your skill. The shape is somewhat arbitrary: anything that's both difficult to cast and easy to examine for quality would work, but once people started making dodecahedrons that's what people expected and it became a kind of standard.
- Waterluvian 3y agoInteresting idea. I wonder if when comparing all 100 there’s indicators that each are effectively unique in their manufacturing.
- pwillia7 3y agoI wonder if you could correlate where they're found to places with high quality forge/smithing operations
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- JKCalhoun 3y agoThat theory works for me. Making a wooden hammer is a typical first project for the hand-tool woodworker — so perhaps the metal smith had a similar hello world. My first thought was that the thing was some kind of "hub" for ropes used perhaps in some tent design. I was imagining rope loops passing through the holes and then looped over a stud on the other side. But the article says there are no signs of wear and so not a tool.
- timthelion 3y agoThis is no Hello world, this is more like a doctoral thesis I think...
- bee_rider 3y agoMaybe more like a Professional Engineering license or a medical degree; to show familiarity with the standards of a particular profession.
- emmelaich 3y agoMy thought was also to tents but used as a top point for wooden posts to enter / go through.
- etrautmann 3y agoI’m not sure why there’s always so much focus on purpose. People build objects of geometric fascination as art objects all the time. I agree with you that there need not be any religious significance here.
- koromak 3y agoBut haven't these things been found all over the world? Like as far as Vietnam. We've found hundreds of them. "Its a cool object" doesn't quite explain its ubiquity, or the fact that they are almost identical looking despite which side of the globe their on. That suggests purpose to me.
- Ekaros 3y agoWheels and balls have also been found across the world. Dodecahedrons are fundamental shapes. Thus universal. And also expected size would be pretty much same. In general symmetry is pleasant. So I would expect symmetric shapes to come up when people have enough time and resources to build them, even if they have no use.
- Towaway69 3y agoAgree, why does it always have to be a religious object if an object doesn't have a clear and distinct purpose attached to it. I guess when future archeologist dig up our junk they'd believe we were an extremely religious society, with many superstitions and strange beliefs. /s
- INTPenis 3y agoThat just doesn't work for me for two reasons, they would have been recycled almost immediately as all metals were relatively precious, and why don't we find as many other training pieces? And of course it goes without saying that they've appeared made out of non-metal materials.
- mrob 3y agoThey're small enough that I can imagine people holding onto them. The hollow construction also reduces the quantity of metal used. And it's possible that we find other training pieces but don't recognize them as such, because the other ones could have practical uses.
- ransom1538 3y agoYes and no. I respect the "they would have been recycled" argument, but, there would still be some. If you were good enough to cast a Dodecahedron, you are probably rich enough to keep your best one, to show off to all the new hipster kids.
- INTPenis 3y agoAny metal we find after 2000 years is a miracle. So the amount of these dodecahedrons indicate that there were a lot more in circulation at the time. 2000 years of poor and homeless people looking for any metal they can sell as scrap. That's why I don't buy the apprentice argument that always pops up in these discussions. In this case you'd be excused for saying it's some sort of ritualistic object. Because rituals are important in people's lives, important enough to create and carry around metal and stone objects with you. And rituals pervade all of society. I don't claim to know what it is, but I think it was either very important to some ritual, or very practical to some trade.
- nemo 3y ago>Any metal we find after 2000 years is a miracle. That's not really true. There's regular finds of hoards of thousands of ancient coins that are in excellent condition, esp. Roman coins. You'll find there's an actually quite a large number of ancient metal artifacts archaeologists have discovered if you look into it. Certainly the preservation rate is very low since people tend to guard metal objects and recycle them, but things happen, today archaeologists estimate there's something in the order of 10-30 millions of Roman coins that have been recovered in museum collections and held by private owners. This depends on the metal, of course, iron preserves poorly as does bronze, so those are rare, but gold preserves extremely well, and silver better than bronze, esp. in drier conditions.
- wigster 3y agomy brother is a welder and he made a similar thing during his training (30 years ago)
- nemo 3y agoOne thing to keep in mind is the geographic distribution of these things. They're mostly found in the province of Gallia and Britain, and not in other regions. There'd be a lot of metalworkers in Rome and the surrounding cities in central and south Italy, but no artifacts like this have been found, and they've found > 100 of them now so the distribution is probably significant.
- lithos 3y agoThe cities likely had some form of guild system to prove claims like this. The middle of nowhere you could prove yourself with a standardized piece of work. ___ Though personally I like the "glove grandma" video of her crocheting gloves with the pieces.
- mcphage 3y ago> The cities likely had some form of guild system to prove claims like this. > The middle of nowhere you could prove yourself with a standardized piece of work. Which is why it's significant that none have been found in Rome, or any of the major warmer cities.
- yreg 3y agoWhy? This could have been just some local system in that region.
- TSiege 3y agoI think you and the poster are in agreement. The significance is that you wouldn't need knitted gloves in Mediterranean climates. So if this was for some other use or as a novelty, you'd expect it evenly distributed throughout the empire
- ffgjgf1 3y ago> you'd expect it evenly distributed throughout the empire Why? Large premodern states were almost never strongly culturally homogeneous. Especially below the upper class/elite level.
- ragazzina 3y agoWhy are they often found in coin hoards then? This makes no sense.
- throwup238 3y agoThey’ve got a lot of sentimental value to the original owners of those hoards. It actually makes more sense: master blacksmiths were far more likely to be wealthy enough to have coin hoards and considered the objects symbolic of the trade that made that wealth.
- happymellon 3y agoSo it's like a dev who's made themselves some money, getting buried with their C64?
- RecycledEle 3y agoI might just ask them to bury me with a Commodore 64 now that you gave me the idea. It would be a shame to waste a working one, but maybe I can build a replica?
- Towaway69 3y agoSymbolic of their trade is for me also a good explanation. Something like a guild symbol hanging on the front of their workshop. Or perhaps they were playing dungeons and dragons and needed these multiple faced dice ;)
- SantalBlush 3y agoA lot of folks in this thread are latching on to this theory and making speculations to support it.
- throwup238 3y agoAs is tradition in archaeology.
- bee_rider 3y agoThat’s a neat idea. > “It is an example of very fine craftsmanship, finished to a high standard.” Nice, if there’s an afterlife that guy is probably beaming right now, haha.
- saalweachter 3y agohttps://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/after-2 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/after-2
- subsubzero 3y agoSo basically its just leetcode interview testing but for metal workers :)
- gedy 3y agoMore like a take home project.
- Levitz 3y agoMaybe in some 2.000 years digital archeologists will wonder what in the world did we use fizzbuzz for
- Aardwolf 3y agoWait until they unearth fizzbuzz enterprise edition...
- klntsky 3y agoOr monkey NFTs
- someuser2345 3y agoI'm currently alive, and I still don't know what they're used for.
- layer8 3y agoThat wouldn’t really explain why the holes have different sizes on different sides, and why some of the dodecahedrons were found in wealthy women’s graves.
- monkeynotes 3y agoMaybe all of those variations are ways to demonstrate mastery, like asymmetry of all the holes might demonstrate a certain skill. I don't have an opinion of the overall hypothesis.
- tempestn 3y agoSeems like a wealthy person's toy/puzzle to me. Maybe it came with a set of wooden balls to fit into the holes.
- layer8 3y agoThat doesn’t explain why it was predominantly found in military locations.
- tarikjn 3y agoThe equivalent today would be 3Dbenchy boats -- "we found an identical boat toy design in multiple sites made of different plastic materials, colors and sizes. It is spread universally around the World cities, found in sites of crafts, leading us to believe it is an idol of a new 21st century religion predominant among workers of the arts and crafts"
- pinko 3y agoAlong these lines, if you haven't ever seen it, check out _Motel of the Mysteries_ by David Macaulay. (Yes, that David Macaulay!)
- hiatus 3y agoA Canticle For Leibowitz touches on a similar theme.
- ojo-rojo 3y agoI agree. I started with Anathem then went to A Canticle for Leibowitz. Together they were a fun read, I've put them both on my bookshelf.
- PhasmaFelis 3y agoI remember "reading" that as a kid, when I was too young to really understand the text, and thinking it was a horror story.
- junon 3y agoIs this the one where they find the toilet seat and think it's jewelry or something? If so, had the same experience. I was too young to understand it and thought it was something scary.
- PhasmaFelis 3y agoYep, exactly! Tons of shadowy pictures of decayed skeletons lying in beds and bathtubs, and most of the humor is in the text.
- yetanotherloser 3y agoI like that theory too and offer a followon explanation: to make a dodecahedron you must make an accurate regular pentagon and this is not trivial with ancient geometric methods, you need to have learned a thing or two to get there. This makes it a better test than, say, an icosahedron. But we do know that the Roman empire wasn't completely unfamiliar with icosahedral dice, probably for a magical or divinatory purpose rather than determining whether your wizard made her saving throw. An analogy to this "masterpiece" theory might be the industrial-age "Turner's cube" that demonstrates a pretty solid level of ability with a lathe.
- whoopdedo 3y ago> probably for a magical or divinatory purpose rather than determining whether your wizard made her saving throw. Why should I assume humans playing recreational games is a recent invention?
- yetanotherloser 3y agoBoard games are much older than the Romans, though possibly not older than writing - and texts give us a bit of a clue that some early ones were part recreation part ceremonial. By Roman times pure recreational games were common and reasonably often referenced in their literature. They definitely used cubic dice with numbers on for games (and gambling). The icosahedral dice usually have Greek letters rather than numbers (occasionally symbols IIRC) which make them hard to move a piece to or compare scores; we don't seem to find them with game boards like we do "Latrunculi" counters; there's no textual support for a game with them (weak evidence, true) but there's a fair bit for strong interest in divination and oracles that could use them. So not a dead cert, but fairly likely for the D20s. Whereas when you find a Roman D6, you can be pretty sure it's for gaming and/or betting (or a thief's hit points).
- tessierashpool 3y agoGreek letters were used as numbers during the time of the Romans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_numerals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_numerals also, sorry to be that guy, but D&D hasn't had a thief class since 3rd edition came out, in 2000.
- Duanemclemore 3y agoThe "Turners Cube" of the day.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- signalToNose 3y agoAnd that dodecahedron would be a challenge to 3d print
- Suppafly 3y agoThat was my immediate thought when I first saw the article about these. The whole 'it was probably something religious' is such a cop out and I can't believe scientists continue to push that anytime they can't explain something.