Bronze Dodecahedron from Roman Period (Found)

Ursa major said:
The first was that its use was probably/possibly "religious", the second was that its use was probably/possibly "ceremonial"... and I can't recall what the third one was.
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"Religious" and "ceremonial" are practically the same thing!!!! And the third one was probably something along the lines of: "used for ritual purposes".
 
Dave said:
Was it "alien" in origin? i.e. Erich von Däniken
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Well, I suppose it could be a knob that came off the dashboard (or maybe the gear lever) of an alien spaceship... about 10 000 BC? That probably explains why the aliens never made it home. They were then stuck teaching those funny furless apes how to grow and ferment grapes and grain just to get a bit of wine/beer and bread. And then they had to teach the furless apes how to write so they could keep track of quantities of stuff, and also trade exchanges etc... and then while you are at it, might as well get all those furless apes to build a ziggurat (just to keep them busy while the aliens were sleeping off the hangover). ;)

BTW - spell check does not acknowledge the existence of "ziggurat". Has anyone else noticed how shitty the spelling and grammar checks everywhere have become.
 
Ursa major said:
Yes, "ritual" was the third.
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Which is also the same thing as "religious" and "ceremonial". It's terribly unoriginal of these "experts" to mine the thesaurus for extra words instead of actually doing some research, talking to grandma, looking in a book that isn't in the archaeology section etc etc
 
They're not quite the same, and in their "correct" order -- religious, ritual, ceremonial -- they indicate a decrease in the "other worldly" aspects in the (assumed) use of an artefact...

...with the first being solely/mainly religious (however this might be defined), the third not being religious at all, and the second being a bit like last year's coronation, with both ceremonial and religious aspects.
 
Say that one of us was whisked away suddenly and our belongings were all that was left of us. The personal things that we had kept that would be found 1000 years in the future would likely be religious i.e. a necklace with a cross, ritual i.e. prayer beads, ceremonial i.e. wedding and engagement rings. However, there would also be functional things too. A recent news report mentioned in a thread here mentioned tools, screws and bolts in men's sheds that they never threw away, and how that had more recently become phone leads and cable adaptors. The Dodecahedron is one of those functional things. The hammer without a shaft is another.
 
Dave said:
the archaeologists probably aren't "baffled" at all. It will be much more likely that the journalists don't want to give up a good story.
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Can I take that comment back again? The BBC are still reporting more on this and there will be a BBC show with Alice Roberts about it. According to this report it is certainly archaeologist Dr Jonathan Foyle who remains "baffled" and the journalists are simply reporting what he said.

www.bbc.co.uk

What is the mystery Roman object found on hill in Norton Disney?

Historian and broadcaster Dr Jonathan Foyle gives his take on suggestions put forward by BBC website users.
www.bbc.co.uk

There are all sorts of other crazy ideas being put forward - egg sizer, dog toy feeder, puzzle, die, incense burner, spaghetti measure - but when it comes to the glove crocheting his response is:
I bet Alice Roberts would be absolutely up for that suggestion... You can indeed make a glove finger from them, which people have ingeniously done... [However, for the Romans} there was no evidence of knitting until centuries afterwards.
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So, even though he is aware of all the YouTube videos he is unable to comprehend overturning some accepted theory that says that the Romans did not knit. This is exactly the kind of thing that held back Victorian and post-Victorian British historiography, described as a myopia of "arrested intellectual development, and conceptual poverty" to quote one historian. The reputations of great historians was more important than whether they were right or wrong and couldn't possibly be challenged.

Just apply Occam's Razor: that the simplest explanation is always the most likely. If the theory doesn't fit the evidence, then that theory is incorrect. That's why Science is different to History.
 
It's incredible to think that we still know so little of the technical skills, knowledge and equipment used by our ancsstors; especially one so well focumented as the Romsns. It makes you wonder what other more signifixang advancements have been lost to the ravages of time.

The chances are that if there are no recorded mentions of such things, they would likely have been for some humdrum usage. So gambling, knitting or somesuch.
 
Dave said:
Say that one of us was whisked away suddenly and our belongings were all that was left of us. The personal things that we had kept that would be found 1000 years in the future would likely be religious i.e. a necklace with a cross, ritual i.e. prayer beads, ceremonial i.e. wedding and engagement rings. However, there would also be functional things too. A recent news report mentioned in a thread here mentioned tools, screws and bolts in men's sheds that they never threw away, and how that had more recently become phone leads and cable adaptors. The Dodecahedron is one of those functional things. The hammer without a shaft is another.
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I wonder what would be made of something as mundane as a bath plug or a toilet roll holder?
 
The chain went around the neck or wrist, and the round white rubber thingy on the end was clearly a representation of the Moon.

Either that or it was a fertility symbol. That often seems to be a popular alternative.
 
If they found a bath plug then Dr Jonathan Foyle would say that you can indeed hold water in baths with them, which people have ingeniously done, however, for that there was no evidence of Roman baths until centuries afterwards.
 
Did Roman baths have holes for drainage? Or did they just scoop them out with a bucket or tip the little ones over? I'm assuming the baths got emptied out every now and again and not just topped up? :unsure:
 
I was being facetious regarding Roman spas and his earlier comment. I've no idea who invented the bath plug. I've never thought about it before, there is only evidence that it was used in some form as far back as the medieval period, but the Romans did invent plumbing and central heating.

paranoid marvin said:
It's incredible to think that we still know so little of the technical skills, knowledge and equipment used by our ancestors; especially one so well documented as the Romans.
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I think this is the main thing to take away from all of this. We think we know all about the Romans, because a great deal was written by them, but we don't really know all the day-to-day details like did they use a bath plug or crocheted gloves. This latest dig in Pompeii has shown that the houses were being renovated, with use of plumblines and reuse of old roof tiles, and that walls in rooms with fires were dark so they didn't need constant repainting, but what do we still not know?

Pompeii: Breathtaking new paintings found at ancient city
 
I think it's a piece of Roman lego...

legas
legat
legamus
legatis
legant

:)

Made me laugh anyway (from the last edition of Private Eye).
 
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