Roman Dodecahedron

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

We had lots of fun with the Antikythera puzzle, but no real success

… so let’s try something simpler:

According to BBC News

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A mysterious Roman artefact found during an amateur archaeological dig is going on public display in Lincolnshire for the first time.

The object is one of only 33 dodecahedrons ever found in Britain, and the first to have been discovered in the Midlands.

It was found in Norton Disney, near Lincoln, in the summer of 2023.

The artefact is also one of the largest ever found, measuring about 3.14in (8cm) tall and weighing 0.54lb (245g). …

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MichaelG.

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Edit: __ https://nortondisneyhag.org/?page_id=2406

 

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

I have seen a number of these on various programmes and have failed to come up with anything that makes sense but could not be made with a simpler design. On the basis that the Roman Empire absorbed many gods and religions over the span of its existence my feeling tends towards something to do with one of these religions. The different sizes would not matter then, much like a statue, icon or picture can be scaled to suit available space or raw materials.

Martin C

[Bo’sunParticipant @bosun58570]

Saw this on “Digging For Britain” a little while ago, and have been perplexed by it ever since.  What’s even more perplexing is that the experts are baffled by it.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

When in doubt, the experts tend to revert to ‘ritual’ as a explanation … but surely we can be more imaginative than that.

MichaelG.

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My first thought was that it would be an excellent test-piece for a 3D Printer !

[NealebParticipant @nealeb]

Sitting on my table at the moment is what might best be termed a “Rubik’s dodecahedron”. Maybe this Roman artefact was an early attempt at one?

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

It’s probably the Holy Hand-Grenade of Antioch!

[JAParticipant @ja]

I saw it on “Digging for Britain” also.

Really it is a no-brainer. Surely it is a Roman bronze caster apprentice’s test piece. That is the final item one made as an apprentice to demonstrate your skill. It should get you a job anywhere in the Roman Empire.

JA

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

Put a long pole through it making a multi directional weapon guaranteed to put nasty wounds in somebody’s head.👹😉

[David Millar 3Participant @davidmillar3]

I’ve seen this object “identified” as being an aid for knitting gloves. Not sure how true that is!

 

David

[David Millar 3]

On David Millar 3 Said:

I’ve seen this object “identified” as being an aid for knitting gloves. Not sure how true that is!

 

David

Don’t know the detail of how that would work, but I think that idea has a lot of credibility. Note the knobs at each corner of the pentagons, and remember the ‘French Knitting’ reels that kids – not wanting accusations of sexism, but in my youth usually girls – used to use to produce knitted woollen tubes. Those had a ring of pins around the through hole. Now consider how the different-sized holes might’ve been used to produce knitted ‘fingers’ for gloves to be fitted to hands of different sizes.

Looks plausible to me.

[FulmenParticipant @fulmen]

I think it’s the greatest practical joke ever.

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Note there are some videos experimenting with its use – random example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOLqOgkWerg

[FulmenParticipant @fulmen]

As compelling as the knitting theory is, I’m sticking with the practical joke. That or a sex toy.

[JAParticipant @ja]

I remember French knitting when a young kid. One used a wooden cotton reel with some pins, small nails not dress makers’ pins, hammered into one end. I did not understand what you did with the result.

JA

 

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

Edith Hall appearing on R4 just before 6pm news, though stating she would put a tea-light in it, suggested that it might be based on platonic theory that in which the universe was based on regular bodies, it might be a symbol of the universe – basing the idea on its appearance in the grave goods of some princess where it was used on the tip of a wand (rather like a sceptre ) to indicate a power over her subjects.

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

I suspect these dodecahedra were used in divination, or at least had some religious/astrological significance (think of the twelve lunar months and twelve signs of the Zodiac etc.).

In the following work by Jacomien Prins on the Renaissance writers Ficino and Patrizi, we find this passage:

“Finally, the dodecahedron is left for the heavens in their entirety because it has the same number of faces as the celestial zodiac has signs. It is envisaged as the most comprehensive of all regular solids, just as the heavens embrace all things.”

On the topic of the dodecahedron Prins also quotes Ficino, who is quoting Proclus, who is writing about Euclid:

“Duodecaedram (sic), quae duodecim facies habet, congruere putat mundo propter sphaeras duo­ decim, ac signa duodecim in Zodiaco.”

“He (Euclid, presumably) thinks that the dodecahedron, which has twelve faces, corresponds to the universe on account of (the) twelve spheres and twelve signs of the Zodiac.” (My translation).

 

 

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Random number generator for a betting game is my best guess. Kind of multi sided dice.</p>
regards Martin

[David AmbroseParticipant @davidambrose86182]

To me it looks like a model of the Covid virus.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

+1 on the dice theory.

Rob

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Some interesting vids on the tube on how to make using only a lathe!

[mike TParticipant @miket56243]

It looks to me like an early Roman prototype of the Tupperware Shape Fitting Toy, we bought for our kiddies when they were younger.

But I may be completely wrong

Mike

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

Apparently it is to be featured on the BBC News at ten tonight.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Edith Hall (cited by Frances, above) also considered the knitting-mould idea, and rejected another suggestion of it being a surveying instrument; but also explained one had been found on a sceptre in a very wealthy woman’s grave.

I thought that suggests it might simply have been ornamental!

I have made a hollow dodecahedron, from brass sheet, as a Christmas present for a girlfriend. It was a dodecahedron of two halves (sorry, couldn’t resist that…) held together by a central, internal column topped by an ornamental nut. Each upper half’s pentagonal side faces were drilled with a pentagonal pattern of small holes, and the object was meant as a pomander but Nina used it to stand ornamental dried grasses.

That was some 40-odd years ago…. If is still survives I wonder if in the distant future some archaeologist and comet’s-tail of on-line experts would be wondering what Act of Divination to which Deities had needed my dodecahedron. They’d probably be wrong. Nina was a Wiccan and they don’t use dodecahedra!

….

” We had lots of fun with the Antikythera puzzle, but no real success.”

Errr, Michael, the Antikythera (named after the island, not its unknown original name) is now generally regarded by them as are paid to know these things, having taken a nine-tonne medical scanner all the way to Greece to analyse it, as an astronomical calculator.

The device that gave us so much fun with no success at all, a few years ago now, was labelled “Copyright 1908” if I recall correctly, and the 16-times table; but bore no maker’s name, and we found no clear pattern to its curious numerical scales on concentric discs. (It may have had a name on some component or case that had long been lost.)

I followed some pretty arcane lines of hunch-led enquiry with no luck.

Remember?

 

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, I think they had a Dodecahedron in the film Super Girl, not that I watched it for my own delight, it was on telly nearly 40 years ago when my young daughter then, came during my access for my two kids, can’t remember what the film was all about though.

Regards Nick.

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

 

….

” We had lots of fun with the Antikythera puzzle, but no real success.

 

Errr, Michael, the Antikythera …

[…]

 

I followed some pretty arcane lines of hunch-led enquiry with no luck.

Remember?

 

Nigel

I wrote what I intended

As her late Majesty said, in a different context:

Some recollections may vary

MichaelG.

[Author]

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