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Another Mysterious Roman Dodecahedron Has Been Unearthed in England
(www.smithsonianmag.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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Its a knitting helper.
A knitting helper the size of a grapefruit that would have cost more than what a shepherd earned in a lifetime.
My argument against this is they're all 12 sided. That's like finding out knitting needles were all the same length and shape.
Something used for a task like that will have variations in design.
These things are oddly specific. The lack of evolution leads away from it being an actually designed and optimal tool.
It's definitely designed to look good first. If it does anything while looking good that's a mystery so far.
Given that we are talking about roman times, metal was expensive, and working metal in such a way even more so.
It could also be that similiar tools in cheaper were made out of wood and simply rottet away since then.
In fairness, acheulean stone tool design didn’t really innovate between the earliest recorded find (~2 million years ago) and the latest (~160,000 years ago), which is a lot longer than the Romans existed. And they were much more basic tools, ripe for innovation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acheulean
Those stone tools are surprisingly effective and efficient.
The innovation block to improve was access to bronze.
That's different than a complex shape requiring rare resources and skills to produce appearing out of nowhere and disappearing again.
If people start using that shape for knitting I'll start to believe it. But all I've seen is that it can be used for knitting, not that it's even close to the best shape for it.
I'll bet a knitter could learn to use one of those and improve on the design almost immediately, creating a better tool.
Sure, maybe the only thing preventing any innovation was access to a new material, tho I strongly doubt that for the same reasons many paleontologists doubt it - namely that they frequently weren’t even used, the stone flakes chipped off them were used instead, and that near the end of the period they can be found, there were actually some impactful changes to the design, before revolutionary new materials were found. But likewise in Roman times they were limited (both the skill to make it and decent enough quality material to actually work with)
Only a few people in an area would be metal workers skilled enough to do something like this (and who knows, maybe the dumb thing is an apprentice training item, not actually serving any purpose), and they likely wouldn’t be the ones using it if it is for knitting. So perhaps until the design evolved into something so different we don’t recognize them as iterations, the same one was just used because the people doing the metal work weren’t the people using the tool, and didn’t want to have to design a workflow for something new for marginal increases in usefulness. Perhaps it appearing out of nowhere was also an innovation, lasted until the replacement of an entirely different design caught on or something, and abruptly died out because it wasn’t very good.
Frankly I don’t have a dog in this one, and I don’t think it’s actually a knitting implement, I’m just saying a long time period without design change doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
My point is this isn't a long period without design change though. Not compared to the axes.
Innovation has periods of change and equilibriums.
It's an object around for a short period of time, then forgotten about.
If it was a new innovation it would be when changes were constant, until the design settled into equilibrium.
Essentially if it were a tool, there would also be prototypes and variations. Then the winning design. Not a winning design with no changes.
The prototypes (Or what commoners would use) may not have been metal, since metalwork was probably rather pricy, (carved wood or unfired clay perhaps) and decayed over time. Only the “winning” design was made metal, until replaced. :)
Idk, really just spitballing, like I said I don’t think that’s actually what it’s for. I find it more likely to be an apprentice test object, kept as a status symbol. But we’ll probably never actually know.
This little blurb from the article is why I think it’s a training object
Woah buddy, can't just be dropping hard Rs like that!
https://i.imgur.com/eZrM9s1.jpeg
Uhh?
And why would this belong to a shepherd and not some sort of craftsmen, merchant, or military outpost?
I'm just quoting the article.
If its grapefruit sized it may be used for big ropes or something like that.
Just think, one could create a non ornamental version with cheaper materials...
And? Are rich woman from the past not allowed to do some knitting in their free time if they want to?
I very much doubt there were many rich Roman women in Britain at the time.
Southern England is loaded with Roman villas that included such luxuries as underfloor central heating. There was plenty of wealth in Roman Britain.
Why?
Because Britain was at the edge of the empire, they never managed to fully control the island, and the journey from Rome would have been very uncomfortable, long and dangerous.
Merchants?
I've seen cutlery made from pure silver with gold and diamond ornaments.
So... Why wouldn't it be used for mundane stuff? The entire case is based on assumptions.
Smithing test.
My guess would be braiding, like rope or leather or jewellery.
I've seen a video of one being used to weave metal wire for jewelry. It's definitely plausible.
But until someone unearths an ancient Roman user manual, all the people confidently asserting "it was for knitting gloves" should be a lesson about how people on the internet will present guesses as proof.
Yeah, makes total sense that rich aristocrats would have common knitting tools buried with them with other valuables.
If its expensive as hell, like the article says, it might have been a valued gift someone liked, man people get buried with a lot of stuff...