3 ms·

Maybe they needed a place to store the dodecahedrons? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron

• socalgal2 9mo ago
  precursor to Shape-O-Toy?
• tim-tday 9mo ago
  That’s it!!!
• vee-kay 9mo ago
  The Roman Dodecahedrons were discussed on HN before. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44565806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44565806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39102069 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39102069 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24332244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24332244 Several theories on their purpose, most plausible (IMHO) is that that they were used for knitting. https://www.reddit.com/r/ancientrome/comments/17a17ju/roman_dodecahedron_solved/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ancientrome/comments/17a17ju/roman_...
  • pseudohadamard 9mo ago
    And they're all wrong. The real use was with a (now decayed-away) wooden ball inside them which, when shaken, displayed texts like "certum est" and "iterum postulo".