TELL ME YOUR SECRETS
TELL ME YOUR SECRETS
Hella unlikely they were used to knit gloves
Unlikely why?
Here's a video of it being used for that: https://youtu.be/76AvV601yJ0?si=kvdh4ZLiBCmyldPN
I have seen people argue that "they are pretty intricate and expensive things to use only for the purposes of knitting gloves. ". To them, I would like to submit my wife's $1100 sewing machine that definitely gets used, and isn't just some weird status symbol among creative types.
Just because you could use it for knitting it doesn't mean it was its purpose.
There's not a lot of detail, but you can check on the Wiki why it's ultimately an unlikely explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron#PurposeWikipedia and this sort of thing.....Yknow the article on saddles says that stirrups weren't invented till the 9th century AD but the article on riding boots said the heel, to prevent your foot going through the stirrup, dates to 5th century BC.
Ofk. They just made them to troll future archaeologist
Just like my code. It's obvious what it does and doesn't need documentation.. until I try to understand it 2 years later.
Lol, try two weeks later 😅
Ehm, two days for me ;)
My mother has a fascination with Roman Dodecahedra, so I 3D printed her one for Christmas. She hasn't knitted any gloves with them yet. (And may never, but she still likes it and has it sitting on the mantle over the fireplace.)
Printing a Roman dodecahedron seems like an interesting torture test for a 3D printer, plenty of overhangs.
Yeah, the particular model I printed was specifically designed to be easy-ish to print. It's printed in like 32 parts (one for each face and one connector for each vertex) and requires assembly after printing. All to avoid overhangs and such.
But yeah. Raw-dogging it with the supports would be pretty nightmarish. Lol.
Every Roman has a plumbus in their home. It's clearly a Latin word.
E plumbus unum
Plumbinnious
Archeologists when we're ancient:
"Wtf is these?"
"I dunno but I bet my mum could knit a glove with it"
It'll take them a single step on them to understand these were used in wars. That they are no longer used because they were probably banned for human rights violations.
You jest, but people actually did (and do!) use them in wars:
They were replaced by the ones that blow up instead. Less pain but more instant death.
Children's caltrop set.
Rule number 1 of archaeology: if you don't know what it is, then it's religious.
Btw my favorite theory is that they are some kind of dice for a game. The little nubbins on the corners would help them bounce around better.
Foot massagers
AMAZING! You have uncovered the missing thing that goes INSIDE the dodecahedrons!
That's a prime chaotic resonator, It's to apply fossils to your gear..
By the shining golden arse of innocence, I got that reference.
It's a rope junction, with the different holes for different knots and rope bundles, with the spokes serving as rope bend/end points. Presumably it would get weeded out as the places where it was employed either stopped making use of them, like perhaps the weather fabric roof shielding of the coliseum, or ended up using more specialized means, like for sailing.
These things are generally found with coins. They would have been shockingly expensive to use as a rope junction when there are other, cheaper ways to do that. They would have been difficult to produce, especially in any great quantity, hell it would be hard today. There's also at least one icosahedron floating around somewhere that's very similar but with fewer openings
It would make sense that if there were better alternatives that the other, cheaper ways to do that would win out. It's metal working, you are talking as if the gladius wasn't common in ancient Rome.
It's just intuitive for working with rope, given the shape of the spokes and the holes, in a way where it would be treated as a junction. The ones that do have the holes have different sizes, giving a glimpse of additional features being incorporated into the tool and hinting at what it might have been used for.
It's called a Roman dodecahedron, except not so much for the version of it that has no holes.
What I'm beginning to think is that it was designed to spin (hence the circular groves on the sides) and join smaller ropes into those of bigger sizes, with different holes adapted to different templates of sizes. The version with no holes was designed to work with less ropes and didn't need it or just simply didn't incorporate it yet. Still placing my bets on a rope rigging junction.
That it was found in places with lots of coin makes sense, places like the Roman coliseum used a shitload of rope, from the rope that would be used to hold its canopy to those that would handle the weights, counterweights, and mechanisms of its lower levels, and those places would move a lot of money. But maybe it has the more utilitarian purpose being able to create rope bundles of different sizes on demand.
Darned if I know, I'm not an antropologist, just saying what I would assume intuitively, lol
I was going to say, this looks very similar to knitting circles that are available today (I use them all the time). Those knobs and holes make me immediately think that this is used for fibre or knot work of some kind. Rope seems understandable, but I can't tell from the picture if that is made from metal or clay. No issues if it was metal, but I would figure that clay wouldn't hold up to the rope pulling and pressing against it in any intensive application.
I am curious as to why OP decided this is unlikely to be used for "knitting gloves". The Romans may not have practiced knitting as we understand it now since that came about in the middle ages, but knitting isn't the only form of knotwork that can produce cloth.
You don't know what to do with the three seashells?
I like how archeologists never come to the conclusion that something could just be an art trend.
Everything has to have a useful purpose even though we all own stuff with no actual purpose.
The default bucket that archeologists throw stuff into if they really don't know is "religious object".
The wiki on this specific object briefly mentions it may have been for decoration
Yeah it's funny that's never the conclusion but logically it makes sense to not dismiss something as unknown until we're sure it wasn't used for anything else. Still can't wait for future civilizations to be very confused when they see my collection of funny looking coins.
They do come to that conclusion all the time, but in some cases it's impossible to know for sure. If they don't know for sure then they're not going to say it's definitely for decoration only, but they'll list it as an option, which they have done for this object.
How dare you assert my wall of funkopops has no purpose!
Until I looked at the comments here I thought this was the little box thingy that Shadowheart had in BG3.
I wonder how hard it would be to make a mod that changes the model?
Alright, hear me out...lamp.
Guys, I found the moth!
The moth.
I like the idea that it was a blacksmith "benchy." Archeologists might do the same with the one 3D printing hobbyists make.
Archeologists in the future: WHY THE FUCK ARE THERE SO MANY LITTLE BOATS?!
They are for ritualistic and ceremonial purposes
Honestly, that's a pretty good take. Considering that welding/brazing would be incredibly hard (or impossible) with the tools available in antiquity, we're left with casting that beast in one shot. The thin walls and nubblins on all sides that need to permit molten bronze to fill, makes for a difficult to construct and pour mold. Heck, just constructing the master from clay or wood is non-trivial, and then there's the finish work on the rough casting.
So yeah, a practically useless paperweight that demonstrates how amazing your brozneworks is? Totally plausible.
Edit: Upon closer inspection, it might have been mostly turned on a lathe out of a chunk of cast bronze, with a ton of manual finish work. So, still very hard. The nubblins don't 100% interfere with the faces if you can get your tool in behind them, cutting from the axis of rotation, outward. Each face on the duodecahedron has an opposing face, making turning between centers easy. The nublins are also all opposed from each other, on the same axis, which would make those possible to also form on a lathe. It's the hollow inside that would require turning to remove bulk mateiral, then a pile of manual finishing work.
So yeah, a practically useless paperweight that demonstrates how amazing your brozneworks is? Totally plausible.
It could be the equivalent to a master's project for an apprentice. I build and fit custom orthosis and prosthetics, at the end of the fabrication portion of school they had us build a brace that's not really ever prescribed anymore.
However, that particular brace requires all the fabrication skills required to practice in the field. Having one of these sitting on your table is instant proof that you can finish a complicated project.
It would also serve as an easy metric when traveling to places with non standardized measurement systems. Instead of transcribing what 1/32 of a cubic is, the customer could just point to a different sized hole.
1, I don't expect most benchys to last longer than people who know what they're for; I imagine the plastic will crumble to microdust before then, but 2. benchys look like little toy tugboats. Society being so destroyed we can't recognize a toy boat while benchys are still around...I'll believe that the last human to hold a benchy in their hands will say "Oh, a weird little toy boat" but not "no one on earth knows what this is or has the start of the beginning of the foggiest clue what it was for."
What else would it be? It's obviously a Katamari Damacy.
I love how, in this very thread, there are 3-4 pretty confident (and completely different) answers stating, without much doubt, its obvious purpose.
My personal idea is that they are objects created both to flex metalworking craftsman skill and in worship of sacred geometry. Ancient peoples ascribed divinity to the harmonies of the universe, especially the harmonies in mathematics like geometry. The fancier looking platonic solids like dodecahedron and icosohedron have almost magical levels of symmetry built in to them making them both aesthetically pleasing complex shapes. The fact they even exist inspires philosophical and even spiritual thoughts. As far as I understand romans had some very impressive archetecture incorporating mathematical ratios almost constantly, archetects and metal workers may very well have needed to worship geometry as a divine aspect in order to achieve such neurotic levels of mathematics in their aesthetic.
My theory is that they had no practical purpose, they were just a trendy knickknack that eventually fell out of fashion. A Roman equivalent of a fidget spinner or something.
In a few thousand years whatever has become of humanity will be digging up fidget spinners and wondering about them in the same way we do with dodecahedrons. It's not as if anyone will have been preserving fidget spinner media for millennia to explain them.
I'm thinking coin sorter. You start by sorting the smallest coins through the littlest holes, and work your way up.
I'm a knitter, and making gloves with it just doesn't compute for me. It's too clumsy, with too many extra steps. They'd be making gloves from fabric or leather.
I like this idea because it fits with finding them in coin hoards and it seems practical - a simpler way for a merchant to check the value of coins without a scale and set of precision weights.
But this one presents a problem:
Doesn't that one also present a problem for the popular knitting theory? Aren't the holes supposed to show the finger size or something? (I'm not positive, as a knitter this seems really unusual for knitting).
Not really, look up nalbinding. That old way of knitting used one thumb and a needle instead of two needles. all those knobs could have been used in place of your left thumb.
YouTube: ALIeNs ToLd RoMaNs AbOuT ViRuSeS!!
It's a cat toy. They didn't have laser pointers back then.
Looks like my dick would fit. It's a urinal.
I would not be too shocked if there were actually found to be some kind of orgy sex-toy thing...
Or maybe... a dick-measuring/comparing device.
I think you can bring it to Master Rahool for a piece of exotic gear.
The thingamabob needs no description
That's SCP-184 and you don't wanna know what it does.
Sounds useful, actually. As long as you remove it in time.
It's already too late
Has anyone ever tried gathering them all in one place?
The first rule of reuniting mysterious ancient artefacts is do not reunite the mysterious ancient artefacts!
How else am I supposed to summon the eternal dragon to grant my wish!
Foolish mortals, always trying to prove their mortality.
does....does it go in your butt?
No, only things that have a flange.
Anything's a dildo if you're brave enough.
Or dumb enough
I mean, it doesn't go in mine, but you do you I suppose? :-P
i saw someone suggest it was for hanging torches and i desperately want to know what the fuck the inside of their mind looks like, and what they think a torch is
EDC torches with long-lasting paraffin and burnished-bronze keychain now on sale at Amazonicus. Buy now and get a credit-card-sized folding pitchfork half price, to always have in your pocket for those unexpected occasions.
What is this 'Credit Card' you speak of?
I saw that post and it sort of made sense to me. Put the handle in the hole, stands upright. Another person comes along, rotates the torch to an angle and puts the handle of their torch in another hole to balance the weight of the two torches. Same with a third of needed, I think it could work if the device is big enough.
yeah that still doesn't make sense to me, the only way i see it working is if you have a single torch placed in a face so it's all upwards.
and why would you design something so strange to hold torches? imagine coming to someone's house and their light switches are pipe valves in a closet you have to turn to dim the lights throughout the house, wack
if you want to hold multiple torches you can just have multiple sconces
I know what its for but i'm not going to tell you guys
You can tell me. You have sex with it, right?
It honestly kind of looks like a model of a virus lol
honestly the obvious answer to me is that it's just a decoration, it just looks like something you'd put on a shelf to fill space
What's the mysterious third condiment???
We had a visit from a time traveller and hoped that he'd tell us what lorica segmentata was actually called but it happens to be a state secret.
