Another Rare Roman Dodecahedron Found in England Baffles Archaeologists

[We Never Know]

Odd little things. Still a mystery.
Wonder what they were used for. Some that have been found don't have holes.

Rare Roman Dodecahedron Found in England Baffles Archaeologists​

"Roman dodecahedra are something of an enigma: there is no known mention of these 12-sided, hollow objects in ancient Roman texts or images.

First discovered in the 18th century, around 130 dodecahedra have been found across the Roman Empire, although it is interesting that the majority have been found in northern Europe and Britain, and none have been found in Italy.

Rare Roman Dodecahedron Found in England Baffles Archaeologists

Roman dodecahedra are something of an enigma: there is no known mention of these 12-sided, hollow objects in ancient Roman texts or images.

www.sciencealert.com

 

[Viker]

Fascinating little boogers. I've always wondered what they were used for.

Maybe an ancient version of Dungeons and Dragons?

 

[Tamino]

Maybe an ancient version of Dungeons and Dragons?

Nah, that's played with twenty sided dice:

(This is not a fake. I saw this very object in a museum in southern Italy)

 

[Viker]

Nah, that's played with twenty sided dice:
View attachment 91412
(This is not a fake. I saw this very object in a museum in southern Italy)

Okay. There had to be an ancient origin to modern RPGs. It's obvious to me now.

 

[Tamino]

Okay. There had to be an ancient origin to modern RPGs. It's obvious to me now.

To be clear, they probably didn't use those for RPGs, it might have been a divination tool (though tbh, rolling a dice to see if your sword strike connects is a kind of divination as well, isn't it!?).
There are a number of objects like this, inscribed with a variation of either Greek or Roman letters and numerals.
Still, the similarity to modern RPG dice is really cool.

A Roman rock-crystal icosahedron (20-sided dice) in the Louvre

Here’s a pretty image that floats around the web: It’s ancient, and an icosahedron – a 20-sided dice. The Musée du Louvre twitter account (@MuseeLouvre) posted further images of w…

www.roger-pearse.com

 

[Mock Turtle]

Is it just my imagination or have I not seen something similar but with a ball inside - one that seemingly could not have been placed there because of its large size - and created by some unknown, but technologically feasible, process?

So, were these the same with the balls lost?

 

[ChristineM]

Okay. There had to be an ancient origin to modern RPGs. It's obvious to me now.

They did play board games and gambled with dice. Whether the board games developed into RPGs possibly with strategy games like Ludus latrunculorum.

"Rome total war" had to come from somewhere ;-)

 

[Tamino]

Is it just my imagination or have I not seen something similar but with a ball inside - one that seemingly could not have been placed there because of its large size - and created by some unknown, but technologically feasible, process?

Unknown process?
If it is bronze or silver it should be very easy to do.
So you could first make a the ball. Then you cover the ball in a layer of clay and form that clay into the polygon shape that's the inside surface of your desired dodecahedron. Then you model your dodecahedron in wax all around that and cover it in more clay, leaving only 2small openings for casting.
Heat the clay to bake it a bit and melt the wax. Fill the hollow space with molten bronze. Let it cool.
This is a very well known and basic "lost wax casting" technique. https://www.thecrucible.org/guides/...asic lost wax casting,shapes, sizes, and more.

At the end, you can break and remove all the clay bits, leaving only the original ball and the shape you cast around it
E voila: ball inside a seamless bronze dodecahedron with openings too small to fit the ball.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Odd little things. Still a mystery.
Wonder what they were used for. Some that have been found don't have holes.

Rare Roman Dodecahedron Found in England Baffles Archaeologists​

"Roman dodecahedra are something of an enigma: there is no known mention of these 12-sided, hollow objects in ancient Roman texts or images.

First discovered in the 18th century, around 130 dodecahedra have been found across the Roman Empire, although it is interesting that the majority have been found in northern Europe and Britain, and none have been found in Italy.

Rare Roman Dodecahedron Found in England Baffles Archaeologists

Roman dodecahedra are something of an enigma: there is no known mention of these 12-sided, hollow objects in ancient Roman texts or images.

www.sciencealert.com

View attachment 91410

They used that to play Dodgeball.

 

[ChristineM]

They used that to play Dodgeball.

True but not with a heavy bronze dodecahedron though.

 

[Tamino]

True but not with a heavy bronze dodecahedron though.

Well, it would certainly improve your motivation of not being hit

 

[Mock Turtle]

Unknown process?
If it is bronze or silver it should be very easy to do.
So you could first make a the ball. Then you cover the ball in a layer of clay and form that clay into the polygon shape that's the inside surface of your desired dodecahedron. Then you model your dodecahedron in wax all around that and cover it in more clay, leaving only 2small openings for casting.
Heat the clay to bake it a bit and melt the wax. Fill the hollow space with molten bronze. Let it cool.
This is a very well known and basic "lost wax casting" technique. https://www.thecrucible.org/guides/metalworking/lost-wax-casting/#:~:text=The basic lost wax casting,shapes, sizes, and more.

At the end, you can break and remove all the clay bits, leaving only the original ball and the shape you cast around it
E voila: ball inside a seamless bronze dodecahedron with openings too small to fit the ball.

Well, perhaps unknown to those who might have thought magic was the answer.

 

[Altfish]

I love mysteries like this

 

[Estro Felino]

That's not a Roman artifact.
It's something incredibly mysterious and unknown.
It's an object that was made for a purpose...I bet it has something to do with... Ancient astronauts - Wikipedia

 

[VoidCat]

That reminds me of this

 

[VoidCat]

That reminds me of this

There's a meme about the video going around

 

[We Never Know]

There's a meme about the video going around

View attachment 91416

They have also been thought to maybe be a survey instrument for estimating distances to/or sizes of distant objects,
But since they have no marking, that thought stays speculative.

 

[VoidCat]

0

They have also been thought to maybe be a survey instrument for estimating distances to/or sizes of distant objects,
But since they have no marking, that thought stays speculative.

Thats possible. I just found the meme funny.

 

[wellwisher]

The dodecahedron is part of a collection of shapes called Platonic solids invented by the Greek Philosopher, Plato. An understanding of the Platonic solids is required throughout chemistry; crystals. These are the only regular solids where all the vertices and the centers of all the faces and edges lie on spheres (the circumscribed, inscribed, and mid spheres, respectively) with the same center. The dodecahedron symbolized the universe.

J. A. Morales-Vidales, S. A. S. Salazar, J. M. Jacobo-Fernández and A. Tlahuice-Flores, Platonic solids and their programming: A geometrical approach, Journal of Chemical Education, (2020) Article in press, DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00751.

Interestingly, liquid water, in realty does forms an icosahedron, which has twenty sides, as Plato predicted over two millennia before modern science. Water Research has shown that liquid water forms a hydrogen bonded 280 molecule icosahedron structure.

This structure within liquid water has an expanded and collapsed configuration, implicit of the partial polar and covalent bonding nature of hydrogen bonding. My guess is the dodecahedrons shapes found may have been connected to a Roman solider of Greek origins, who was a follower of the Platonic Philosophy, which may have been more taboo in Rome, making these rare in Italy.