Those are objects from the Roman Empire. About 130 have been found in total.
They are typically made of brass and fit in the hand but can vary from 35 grams to a kilo. Each side has holes of different sizes with rings around them. On each corner you will find a sphere protruding.
But there are three things you won’t find.
- you won’t find them in or near the capital. They are found all over the European part of the empire including Britain, but never once in the Near East or African portions of the empire and also never in what we call Italy today.
- you won’t find why they exist. There is no known use for them that survives scrutiny. But you will find lots of speculation.
- you won’t find any markings. No labeles, no symbols, no gauges, or numbers. Just holes with rings.
Are they part of a mystery colt, some rather expensive game piece, blacksmith training? No one knows.
Find a 3D print file and make one yourself and ponder it for a while. Or draw one. I haven’t found any woodworking plans. Maybe I could fix that.
Micron, A5.
The best explanation I’ve heard so far is that they were brasscrafter’s masterworks. Difficult to make, no useful purpose, created entirely to show the skill of the metalworker. Masterworks made to mark the of end apprenticeships were a Celtic practice but brass casting and shaping like this was from Rome so these areas were the two culture overlapped.
That’s where my mind went too. Just imaging how they got the balls on there. Was it one piece? Many pieces? How did they keep it from warping? How many attempts would it take? Crazy to think it was made at all
Its likely that they were sheets of brass cut, folded and soldered / brazed together, then shaped and cleaned up afterwards with files. Clickspring has videos going over some of the techniques likely used for constructing the Antikythera mechanism. They could also be cast. Ive seen examples which indicate both techniques.
One theory on the dodecahedrons ( and occasional icosahedron) was that it is of Celtic origin rather than roman, as the finding distribution more closely matches their regions, and the dodecahedrkn and icosahedron were considered holy symbols, akin to the cross to christians. This may explain their presence in army camps, where knitting is unlikely. Also there is little to no standardization on sizing or markings to indicate hole size, which makes it less likely to be for knitting or glove making.
How funny would it be if this was just a Roman fidget spinner? Maybe the reason that you won’t find them in Rome was because some emperor got sick of the entire Senate fiddling with a toy in their hand while he was talking to them.
Historians: they were likely some sort of religious object or something for maths or something very specific.
Tons of animals (especially humans) throughout history: I just like having this stupid, useless doodad.
Nice work! It’s cool how crisp the forms are with such a sketchy style
With total understanding that there are no actual solid explanations, which do you personally lean towards?
I had to fight to keep outlines to an absolute minimum.
I’d hate to find out it’s a game piece you toss dice into. I kinda like it as a mystery object. A true cult object.
Bro they are quite literally a knitting accessory, used to make glove fingers.
I’m a knitter. I can knit higher quality fingered gloves with double pointed needles (pointy sticks) way faster than anyone can use this as a jig to knit fingered gloves. And this idea completely ignores the existence of the different sized holes with the ring outlines.
Gloves were needed throughout the whole empire. But these don’t show up throughout it. Knitting was pretty much limited to Coptic stitching on sock toes at the end of the Roman period. These objects aren’t found near any Coptic area. Weaving and leather were the default materials for gloves. Knitting didn’t really start until 3rd century. These show up a century before that.
So we have to ignore a lot about their design, age, geographic distribution and the inferior quality of the knitted results to accept they were used for knitting. Knitting doesn’t pass the sniff test as a use for these long before we even get into issues like why they are never found where textile work takes place, aka around women.
Honestly, that’s one of the weather theories proposed.
Weather? Weaker?
Lol
No, of course I meant weather. I lie, though
I lie, though
No you don’t
Well, fuck - you got me…
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Notably, they’re primarily found in Gaul and Germania, suggesting that they’re not Roman, strictly speaking.
The ones in Germania have almost all been found in the Roman bits of Germania (i.e. east of the Rhine), and Roman Britain is the other big area for them, so it does seem like they’re at least partially Roman. They seem to be called Gallo-Roman dodecahedrons a lot of the time because of the areas they’re found in, though
These don’t start showing up until the 300s CE but those areas were occupied since 100 BCE. So that’s a 400 year gap. And they are always found in the presence of Romans, not indigenous locals.
