An Unexplained Roman Dodecahedron

By Minnesotastan in Archaeology on Jun 26, 2011 at 7:00 pm

This should be “What Is It? Game 184″ – but we don’t have an answer. Nobody does.

It’s dated from somewhere around the second and third century AD, and has been popping up everywhere in Europe. Archeologists have found the majority of them in France, Switzerland and parts of Germany where the Romans once ruled. But its use remains a mystery, mostly because the Romans who usually kept meticulous accounts make no mention of it in records. And with sizes varying from 4 to 11 cm, and some bearing decorative knobs, it only gets harder to pinpoint a function.

About a hundred of these have been found. Suggested uses include a gambling or game die, a candleholder, a staff decoration, a survey instrument, a toy, a calibration device, or a religious object.

Your guess is as good as theirs.

Link and followup link. Photo: Portable Antiquities Scheme, British Museum. Additional photos at Wikipedia.

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jay
Jun 26th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
New theories of the shape of our universe suggest dodecahedron…..
joes
Jun 26th, 2011 at 8:37 pm
dungeons and dragons.
Brainiac
Jun 26th, 2011 at 8:38 pm
It’s a dog toy.

Put food inside, the dog goes crazy trying to get it out. To back up my totally specious claim:

The Romans loved dogs. They used them in war, girding their throats with spiked collars (so I’ve heard).
Edward
Jun 26th, 2011 at 9:12 pm
Does everything in your house have a function? Maybe they didn’t document fads in home decoration.
Brent
Jun 26th, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Looks like a string calculator. You wrap a string around the knobs and count where they pass over the holes, add the number of times it passes over those holes or in sequence gives your sum, difference, product, et cetera.
Pelle
Jun 27th, 2011 at 2:03 am
You forgot to mention that it is common that each side has a hole with a different diameter.
Kay
Jun 27th, 2011 at 5:19 am
Probably a grenade. Fill the ball with a pouch of something flammable, add wick and through. Probably why it’s split in half now.
Thaxted
Jun 27th, 2011 at 5:24 am
A way of stirring paint. You put it in the paint pot and close the lid and then shake the pot. Same as the ball that is placed in the spray cans now.
sandyra
Jun 27th, 2011 at 7:19 am
Maybe it’s just beads for necklaces.
stacy lee
Jun 27th, 2011 at 8:50 am
Too big to be beads – they’re about four to five inches in diameter (not including spikes). There’s a complete one in the Museum of London.
paul m
Jun 27th, 2011 at 11:17 am
What about a place for poles to fit in and the be tied for a temporary structure, kinda like the old capsilla toys? there are alot of angles and they would break down quick
Melissa
Jun 27th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
I’m thinking they might have been suspended by string from poles or ceilings, and something like candles or incense lit inside them.
Haypeny
Jun 28th, 2011 at 6:48 am
I don’t know about the ‘meticulous accounts’ bit. Like all of history, large portions of Roman history fall outside of the ancient historians’ purview, or are lost, or conflicting, or very scarce, especially in the 2nd-3rd centuries.
bryon
Jun 28th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Old theories of the shape of our universe suggest the dodecahedron, as well:
“After the Demiurge had used the first four perfect bodies for the elements, says the Timaeus, he had the dodecahedron left over, and he used it for the frame of the whole. There is no need to go into the reasons, geometrical and numerological, which fitted the “sphere of twelve pentagons,” as it was called, for the role. What counts here: it was the whole, the cosmos, that was meant.”
de Santillana & von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill

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