Always love seeing these come up and everyone confidently stating that it’s been solved. Everything from a knitting tool (highly unlikely as the Romans didn’t knit) to a dice. The truth is we just don’t know and likely never will unless a new source .
Personally I’m convinced by the theory that they’re probably a metalworkers portfolio piece used to demonstrate the creators skill, either to potential customers or as a test to join a guild.
Panic Pete
Haha, they don’t know how to use the three dodecahedron’s.
It’s a Roman plumbus.
Everyone Roman has one
This is why there was no need to write about it.
I always wondered how they made those
with lead probably
Spaghetti portion measurer.
Must be ceremonial.
So it’s a sex toy, got it.
A fertility ceremonial, got it!
Did it went up or got filled?
I always loved David Macauley take on this. He wrote a book as if people 2000 years ago found a motel and he presumed the “sanitized for your protection” banding and toilet seats would have been seen as ceremonial wear.
https://www.byanyothernerd.com/2020/04/stranger-days-39-mysteries-of-motel.html?m=1
Ehh idk about this take. I agree with the article that there are some commercial historical mediums like the History Channel that interpret the past in an absurd/almost malicious way. However modern archaeology does a really good job of finding out how objects from the past were used and how people interacted with their environment. A toilet is not really gonna be up for debate as for what its use was. Historical text, fecal remains, toilets looking pretty similar for the past thousand years, is gonna tell you it’s a toilet.
The notion of our interpretation of the past being completely flawed is kinda true if it was like the 1950s and we were talking about non-western cultures from a western perspective.
Again this is a children’s book.
ion know why you saying “again” like you made a big point of it being a children’s book (you didn’t). I’m just saying I don’t like media like this. It feels like they’re delegitimizing research that is already brushed off by society as not useful compared to something in a stem field.
We can have different opinions lol
It’s fiction? I think you need to take a second to actually read the link provided because it’s very clear this is for children and your response to it is silly.
Broski no need to get so pressed. What do you think fiction is? How would a young, impressionable audience, interpret this work?
Works of fiction don’t exist in a vacuum. They are directly inspired and informed from the world we live in. In a similar vain, the impact of fiction does not exist in a vacuum. You don’t read a book and come away with no thoughts related to it. You don’t just throw away knowledge like that. If anything fiction works directed at children have an outsized impact on how we perceive the world compared to the space they occupy in literature.
Im not your bro. You literally are complaining about a fiction book that most people read at the age of nine to twelve. It’s not having the impact that you think it does. You are worrying about nothing likely because you don’t have kids.
I read a book at the same age that suggested we could live on Mars and there was a whole culture on the planet yet I don’t believe that either. Is that because at 9 I understood what fiction is?
I can’t remember if it’s an official Asimov book or not, but one of the Foundation books set far beyond even the main series has an archaeological mission finding thousands of ceremonial hard white ceramic bowl-funnels and speculating on their significance to these incomprehensibly ancient peoples.
thousands
There’s probably millions even if you account for the fact that most would have been destroyed
I remember reading a book as a kid, I can’t remember if it was this or maybe inspired by this, but adapted for kids (iirc the art style was more cartoony and comedic) where archeologists unearth a motel called the Toot and C’mon.
Edit: after a bit of searching I think it was this book. Unlocked some memories I didn’t realize I had.
This guy did a bunch of kids books. My favorites were Castle and Pyramid.
What if instead toilet seats become a symbol for a group of genetically engineered super soldiers known for being Mary Sues?
Underrated joke
A NEW HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON
Nope.
I just assume it’s a random doodad. Like a desk decoration or something. Why wouldn’t ancient people have had dumb bullshit that served no purpose other than it’s aesthetic value just like we do now?
… Art?
It could also have been used for a game
This is SCP-184.
But you probably don’t have access to that file.
This isn’t even a joke, I have an O5 ID card in my wallet. Fun little thing to pull out in moments like this lol
This is amazing. I love it.
God this thing has gotten so beaten up lately. Clearly not the best quality lol that or I’m the longest serving O5.
This is the kind of insanity I wish more upon the world ❤️
There was a dude at a store a few months back who was wearing a hoodie with the Foundation logo on it. After making the purchase when putting the card away I saw the ID and pulled it out. Said “Keep up the good work and we’ll see about those incentives.” I’ve never seen a person look both confused and ecstatic at the same time before lol
Archeologists after looking at literally anything: Looks like a calendar. Or maybe a religious object. Or maybe a calendar of religions significance.
or something used in “fertility rituals”
Translation: it’s clearly a dildo, but if i put that into the study they won’t publish it.
I thought for sure it would be this video
People back then loved their religious calendars. That’s all they ever talked about. Whole books could be written about them.
But instead of books to write about them, they documented their love of religious calendar artifacts, with more calendar artifacts.
That’s a Prime Resonator from Path of Exile
What if it’s a die for an ancient version of D&D? Labyrinths & Minotaurs. Or that thing you put treats in and then your dog rolls it around and gets a biccy every so often.
Cave canem
Romanes eunt domus!
They’ve actually all been planted by time travelers just to fuck with people.
This is why I couldn’t have a time machine. I’d go back in time and fuck with people. Leave a modern day Bic pen deep in a cave in New Zealand, or a randomly shaped object with no clear use made from something like titanium in a forest in the middle of Brazil.
My ancient roman friend says it’s a candle holder for different sized candles
Knitting
People say this every time, and it’s still not true, because the Romans didn’t knit. Knitting is a technology and it hadn’t made it to Rome at the time these were made.
Also, some were solid and unsuitable for knitting. And they were found with giant piles of money, which is a weird place to keep your domestic tools.
Knitting
Oh well if you put it that way I guess it’s knitting
Good
Knitting metal: https://youtu.be/lADTLozKm0I
Knitting is a medieval development that originated around Egypt in probably 1000-1100 CE (AD). There is no evidence of two needle knitting before then.
Romans used sprang, weaving and needlebinding techniques. They did not knit. Some needlebound artifacts can resemble knitting - particularly those in the Coptic stitch. They are still produced using the thumb and needle method of needlebinding and are structurally different.
The type of knitting that YouTube grandma did on the dodecahedron - spool knitting/French knitting - is an even later development - early modern period - 1400-1500s.
As a spool knitter, the dodecahedron makes very little sense. The spacing of the pegs - not the spacing of the holes - is what determines the size of the created tube. Every face of the dodecahedron would create the same size tube - which means you’ve just got extra random pointless shit digging into your hands. Google and compare to a modern spool knitter.
The idea of making a doohickey for fingered gloves, which you would then need to sew on anyway (every knitters least favorite thing to do) - it’s silly.
Here are some 4th/5th century socks - produced via needlebinding.
Here is the earliest known example of true knitting. 1000 at earliest.
You mentioned that not all socks would survive - that is true, but often textile patterns can be recovered through indentions in other material.
knitting what? the ones that have been recovered were way too big to make sense for that purpose
Maybe oversized sweaters were a thing back then
Gotta keep the giants and dragons warm
God-sized sweaters and socks to offer at the sermons in temples
And they don’t show signs of wear and tear that using them for such a purpose would create, either.
My crochet hooks don’t show a lot of wear either.
Gloves. There’s several YouTube videos of people knitting gloves with them. If you use 5 holes, you’ll end up with a slight curve to one side for free. You can use the hole-sizes as a guide for finger width. Most of the work is done by the nubs sticking out, which hold the outermost stitch.
Romans quite literally did not knit.
YouTube grandma was using it as a French/spool knitter. You can do this with four nails in a board if you are really inclined. The problem is that the peg distance determines the size of the tube - not the holes. All faces would make the same size tube, which is just adding pointless bits to make it unpleasant to use (and more expensive/difficult to manufacture.)
Knitting metal: https://youtu.be/lADTLozKm0I
