In the previous post we looked at the construction of a Roman arm guard that may prove inspiring for fashion designers. Yetartefacts from ancient times may be exciting also for other reasons. Take the Roman dodecahedron like the one uncovered last year by the Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group in the UK.
The object was found by the amateur archaeologists in a farmer's field near the Lincolnshire village of Norton Disney (about 56 kilometers southeast of Sheffield). The artefact is now on display in a nearby museum and was also featured on "Digging for Britain," an archaeological television show on the BBC. The dodecahedron has also been included in the British Museum's Portable Antiquities Scheme website.
The Roman dodecahedron is a rather intriguing object: the one found in Norton Disney was made of bronze, but there are also dodecahedra made of copper alloy.
This type of dodecahedron features twelve flat pentagonal faces, each pierced with a circular hole of varying diameter in the middle. Sometimes, faces are decorated with concentric rings or markings imprinted in the metal surrounding the holes. Besides, there is a stud at each corner where the 12 faces meet. The dodecahedron found in Norton Disney has the size of a grapefruit, but there are ones as small as a golf ball.
The first one was uncovered in 1739, but more dodecahedra (over 100) were excavated in a variety of countries, mainly in northwestern Europe (including Australia, France, Germany, The Netherlands and the UK, just to mention a few of them) in the following centuries. All the dodecahedra date from the 2nd to 4th centuries AD.
Being very resistant, Roman dodecahedra are usually intact: the one found in Norton Disney dating back 1,700 years ago, doesn't show any signs of wear and tear, but it is in a perfect condition.
There is something truly fascinating about this object with such a peculiar shape: to this day we don't know its purpose yet. As there was no mention in texts of what they may have been used for, we can only speculate about their function. Some claim that this was an instrument to estimate distances to/sizes of distant objects. Yet Roman dodecahedra do not feature any particular markings to clarify or confirm this purpose. Others think the dodecahedra had a religious use in the Gallo-Roman regions, maybe they were fortune-telling objects.
Other conjectures claim they may have been a part of a child's toy (pretty heavy for that, though), a candleholder, a sort of polygonal dice, a decorative object, a weapon (and more specifically the head of a hammer, but in this case if would have been highly impractical and not effective as a weapon) or a range-finding device for Roman artillery. Another hypothesis is that the dodecahedra were objects made to test the skills of metalsmiths to show their capabilities to customers or qualify for a certain status in a collegium (guild).
Some dodecahedra were found in tombs, and this may confirm they may have been objects linked to divination, but this hypothesis clashes with the fact that other dodecahedra were found in coin hoards, so they may have deemed as valuable (or were they maybe used in connection with coins?).
The most bizarre and original theory states that it may have been a knitting device also employed to make gloves. On YouTube a few users actually tried to come up with their own techniques to produce some knitted pieces from a Roman dodecahedron.
Again this is not a confirmed theory, and poses its doubts as these objects seemed too refined for being just tools for knitting and there are also dodecahedra-like objects without the holes needed for spool knitting (by the way the earliest known reference to spool knitting dates to 1535, if the Roman dodecahedron is a tool for this craft the spool knitting history would be disrupted…).
At the same time it's a fun theory and you can experiment with it buying a model of a Roman dodecahedron, 3D printing it (or having it 3D printed) and then using it to try and knit something with it.
Jewelry designers may instead want to try and resize the dodecahedron, and turn it into jewelry pieces: anybody up for 3D printed gold Roman dodecahedron earrings (maybe with pearls instead of studs)? After all, smaller dodecahedra made from gold were found in South-East Asia along the Maritime Silk Road and offered a tangible proof of the influence of Mediterranean trade on those areas, so, by recreating this object in a smaller scale and using precious materials, you can pay homage to this historical connection.
Comments