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Mysterious? I thought this is a solved problem. Especially also taking into account the boarders of the Roman Empire and the places where they were found. http

Mysterious? I thought this is a solved problem. Especially also taking into account the boarders of the Roman Empire and the places where they were found. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76AvV601yJ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76AvV601yJ0

eyabs 3y ago
Knitting gloves. Neat. I like that idea. Especially since they were only found in the colder regions of the Roman Empire.
SamBam 3y ago
That's a hypothesis, certainly not a solved problem. There in't any other evidence for it, besides someone finding that it could kind of work, and some inference about where it was found. Currently there's no explanation for why it needs to be this very-hard-to-cast bronze dodecahedron, instead of just a wooden board with pegs and holes, which is all that would be needed for the video above. Evidence might involve finding contemporary descriptions of these, bills of sales, descriptions of Romans wearing knitted gloves, etc.
deleted 3y ago
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ertian 3y ago
Based on previous discussions, I don't think so. If they're really for knitting gloves you'd expect to find a lot of standard 'adult hand' sized dodecahedrons along with a few large & small (if that), but in fact you find a whole range of sizes (from tiny to gigantic), with far fewer mediums than you'd expect. They don't cluster around commercial towns: were people really knitting most gloves in border forts? They'd have been very expensive and difficult to produce; it wouldn't make sense for a master metalworker to spend weeks working on a trinket for knitting gloves when it could just as easily be made from wood for a fraction of the cost & effort. IIRC, they don't all have the knobs & holes, or they're oddly sized, and generally they're pretty nonstandard. You find them included in wealthy burials: were these rich people really knitting their own gloves--along with soldiers on the front lines? Why would they be buried with a knitting tool specifically for gloves? Altogether, it seems pretty unlikely they were an aid to knitting gloves.
leptons 3y ago
This video is mentioned multiple times in this thread and it's got to be the most ridiculous take for what these things are. These were expensive and difficult to cast. They are made of metal which is very expensive at the time. There's no reason knitting would require a complex metal cast object of this kind when a wooden jig would be far easier and cheaper to produce.

eyabs 3y ago

Knitting gloves. Neat. I like that idea. Especially since they were only found in the colder regions of the Roman Empire.

SamBam 3y ago

That's a hypothesis, certainly not a solved problem. There in't any other evidence for it, besides someone finding that it could kind of work, and some inference about where it was found. Currently there's no explanation for why it needs to be this very-hard-to-cast bronze dodecahedron, instead of just a wooden board with pegs and holes, which is all that would be needed for the video above. Evidence might involve finding contemporary descriptions of these, bills of sales, descriptions of Romans wearing knitted gloves, etc.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ertian 3y ago

Based on previous discussions, I don't think so. If they're really for knitting gloves you'd expect to find a lot of standard 'adult hand' sized dodecahedrons along with a few large & small (if that), but in fact you find a whole range of sizes (from tiny to gigantic), with far fewer mediums than you'd expect. They don't cluster around commercial towns: were people really knitting most gloves in border forts? They'd have been very expensive and difficult to produce; it wouldn't make sense for a master metalworker to spend weeks working on a trinket for knitting gloves when it could just as easily be made from wood for a fraction of the cost & effort. IIRC, they don't all have the knobs & holes, or they're oddly sized, and generally they're pretty nonstandard. You find them included in wealthy burials: were these rich people really knitting their own gloves--along with soldiers on the front lines? Why would they be buried with a knitting tool specifically for gloves? Altogether, it seems pretty unlikely they were an aid to knitting gloves.

leptons 3y ago

This video is mentioned multiple times in this thread and it's got to be the most ridiculous take for what these things are. These were expensive and difficult to cast. They are made of metal which is very expensive at the time. There's no reason knitting would require a complex metal cast object of this kind when a wooden jig would be far easier and cheaper to produce.