- A Roman dodecahedron, a mysterious 12-sided metal object, was discovered in the village of Norton Disney in England.
- The artifact is in excellent condition and is larger than many other dodecahedrons that have been found.
- The purpose of these objects remains unclear, but theories suggest they may have been used for ritualistic or religious purposes.
Ancient Romans be like: “haha, they don’t know how to use the three dodecahedrons.”
may have been used for ritualistic or religious purposes
Aka they have no fuckin clue what it’s for as that’s what they always say when they have no fuckin clue what something’s for.
Kinda annoying that that’s the first go to when not having a fuckin clue what something’s for.
Last time people 3d printed a whole bunch and handed them out to random people to see what they used them for.
Some old British granny used them to knit fingers for gloves and apparently it’s awesome at that.
It wouldn’t be something everyone owned, no one family needs that many gloves.
But one that gets shared amongst a community/village makes it a worthwhile investment. Especially in cold ass England.
There were likely wooden ones as well that didn’t survive, but it makes sense we find heavy duty ones in England of all places.
I wouldn’t say it’s awesome at glove fingers. It can be used to knit glove fingers but other configurations would be much better. It’s like guessing that a Super Nintendo was used as a hammer: yeah, you could use it for that if you tried really hard, but if you were setting out to make a hammer you wouldn’t make it Super Nintendo-shaped. https://www.cracked.com/article_32125_no-these-mysterious-roman-artifacts-probably-arent-knitting-aides.html
Man, cracked used to be a good source of information, not so much in the last 20 years tho…
20 years? They were fine until that broadcasting company bought them in 2016 and highly pushed Facebook video content. That failed and they paid damn near everyone off. I remember their video content being some random old dude for a couple years after and no new articles. They’ve got a writing staff now but their comedic chops are pretty lacking.
When all you got is a Super Nintendo, everything looks like a middle aged plumber.
Except there’s no records of that kind of knitting existing for best part of a thousand years and none of them show the wear you’d expect if that was the use.
You need to read Motel of the Mysteries. Here’s the premise:
It is the year 4022; all of the ancient country of Usa has been buried under many feet of detritus from a catastrophe that occurred back in 1985. Imagine, then, the excitement that Howard Carson, an amateur archeologist at best, experienced when in crossing the perimeter of an abandoned excavation site he felt the ground give way beneath him and found himself at the bottom of a shaft, which, judging from the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from an archaic doorknob, was clearly the entrance to a still-sealed burial chamber. Carson’s incredible discoveries, including the remains of two bodies, one of then on a ceremonial bed facing an altar that appeared to be a means of communicating with the Gods and the other lying in a porcelain sarcophagus in the Inner Chamber, permitted him to piece together the whole fabric of that extraordinary civilization.
Measuring dry spaghetti portions is a ritual.
Well it’s probably not for making cakes.
Pure speculation
It’s for unlocking the Stargate.
I still think they’re a test/show of skill for blacksmiths
they’ve been found in coin hordes and the like… they were definitely more valuable than that
As an apprentice blacksmith, yeah. I would have difficulty attempting to make that thing out of bronze, and would definitely learn more about smithing than I do now, just making the thing.
But why were they only in northern areas?
I am guessing they are a tool of some sort. You can do a lot with angles and rope with two of these.
A new hand touches the beacon!
So this is what that one meme was about.
I feel like this is just some kind of fidget spinner of ancient times. They must’ve had fads like that too.
I thought these were for knitting? Has that been disproven or was I trolled?
It just hasn’t been proven. Its a fun hypothesis but it could be fucking anything.
Ah, thanks for that. I was beginning to think that I imagined it.
They used to stuff those things full of peanut butter and dog treats then put it in the freezer for a few hours. It kept their golden retrievers busy for a while.
Ritual purposes
Oh so no idea what they were for, got it. I can’t believe news orgs still seem not to have caught on about “ritual” artifacts…
Maybe the romans just played a lot of barbarian characters?
the village of Norton Disney
Is that where they’re building the new theme park?
It’s clearly a cockring.
For a biblically accurate cock
Some theories are that they functioned as measuring devices, calendars, ornamental scepter toppers, weapons or tools.
Early D&D dice?
I go with the dices too
That’s fascinating! I had to look it up. They did indeed have d20s.
Divination – seeking advice about the unknown from the supernatural – seems to be the most likely purpose for the Dakhleh die: the polyhedron might have been thrown in order to determine a god who might assist the practitioner.
Awesome. So they were basically used in cleric spellcasting.
We have random doodads and thingamabobs that someone made specifically for people to buy and just keep on a shelf for decoration; why can’t that be true of ancient things like these? They certainly look like some random knick knack that would sit on a desk and serve no other purpose.
From Plato’s Timaeus:
And seeing that there still remained one other compound figure, the fifth [i.e., the dodecahedron], God used it up for the Universe in his decoration thereof.
There’s speculation that the Neoplatonists equated the twelve faces of the dodecahedron with the zodiac, and thus with the heavens. (The other four regular solids were equated with the four elements.)
✋ Aliens ✋
Ancient Roman personal massager with built in fleshlight.
They accidentally the whole thing.
Not a penis-haver, but wouldn’t that be too small?
Even if it fit, I can’t imagine metal would feel that good up against your dong
