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.
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.
“A huge amount of time, energy and skill was taken to create our dodecahedron, so it was not used for mundane purposes,” writes the group, adding: “They are not of a standard size, so will not be measuring devices. They don’t show signs of wear, so they are not a tool.”
Instead, the group agrees with experts who think dodecahedrons were used for ritualistic or religious purposes. As Smithsonian magazine wrote last year, researchers at Belgium’s Gallo-Roman Museum have hypothesized that Romans used the objects in magical rituals, which could explain dodecahedrons’ absence from historical records: With the Roman Empire’s eventual embrace of Christianity came laws forbidding magic. Practitioners would have had to keep their rituals—and related objects—a secret.
“Roman society was full of superstition,” writes the Norton Disney group. “A potential link with local religious practice is our current working theory. More investigation is required, though.”
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.
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.
Woah buddy, can’t just be dropping hard Rs like that!
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.
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…