Haha, they don’t know how to use the three dodecahedron’s.
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?
I say it’s a key to a door. Behind the door. Butt plugs.
Seems pretty convincing and matches gold bracelets made in the era.
I’ve actually seen an old lady knit gloves with one as well.
They’ve actually all been planted by time travelers just to fuck with people.
It’s a Roman plumbus.
I always wondered how they made those
A NEW HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON
Nope.
Actual guess after hearing that they’re found with money. Used it to check size of coins for valuation? Sort of like how some coin counters with?
A piggy bank even?
All we know for certain is that at some point that thing was on some bored Romans knob.
It’s probably some kids workshop assignment that he brought home to his parents.
Except there’s heaps of them
Part of a standardized curriculum
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.
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
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.
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
What if instead toilet seats become a symbol for a group of genetically engineered super soldiers known for being Mary Sues?
Underrated joke
Obviously it’s a key that needs to be inserted into an ancient titan robot to power it back up.
What an utterly ridiculous notion. Obviously it’s a magical battery that, once charged, can be inserted into an ancient titan robot to power it back up.
Looks like a bigass thundercube to me. Don’t wanna fiddle with them too much, they might get krangled.
Knitting
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.
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 metal: https://youtu.be/lADTLozKm0I
Also gloves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76AvV601yJ0
Knitting
Oh well if you put it that way I guess it’s knitting
Good
knitting what? the ones that have been recovered were way too big to make sense for that purpose
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.)
Socks rarely last a year, fabrics existed in Rome, it’s like not knowing if 2 + 2 equals 2 because there aren’t any historical examples of people putting two and two together until the xth century AD.
The reason that knitting isn’t the currently accepted answer, is that its pretty well understood that in the periods where these are found, Romans quite literally did not knit. Also, Romans documented, like, everything.
First of all, Wikipedia is not a source. All of the sources on Wikipedia are annotated in the text and listed at the bottom of the page. All you have to do is look down, get the actual source, and use that. You couldn’t be bothered to do the bare minimum to give an argument but still waste time throwing out links to non-sources?
Secondly, from your “source”:
These complexities suggest that knitting is even older than the archeological record can prove.[3]
Earlier pieces having a knitted or crocheted appearance have been shown to be made with other techniques, such as Nålebinding, a technique of making fabric by creating multiple loops with a single needle and thread, much like sewing.[4] Some artefacts have a structure so similar to knitting, for example, 3rd-5th century CE Romano-Egyptian toe-socks, that it is thought the “Coptic stitch” of nalbinding is the forerunner to knitting.
What Wikipedia is pointing out is that archeologists for many years did not understand how to distinguish Coptic stitch from knitting. They look very visually similar, but have different physical properties. This did lead to confusion among archeologists - I’ve also seen the fact that other languages don’t distinguish two needle knitting (“true” knitting) from needlebinding techniques (some don’t even seem to have a separate word for crochet, argh…)
I’ve stumbled on some arguments for 8th century examples - but even if we are pushing back the origin date for knitting that far, that still doesn’t put us in Rome (unless we’re counting Byzantium lol). It also does not at all justify the dodecahedron.
Will you be happier if I say the Dodecahedron was likely used for, among other things, setting together strings for fabric in the shape of gloves and mittens? Since the word “knitting” is apparently far too complicated and nuanced for this discussion…
If you think the idea of “knitting” is itself too complicated to understand - why are you making arguments about textile history? What knowledge or interest do you have of textile history?
There is no evidence of that, and it does not align with the known techniques that Romans used for textile production. It would make zero sense as a tool for weaving, sprang or needlebinding.
I also have strong doubts for finger gloves being anything other than extraordinarily rare. Cmon, Roman clothes are mostly just draping yourself with big ass rectangles.
Like, there’s just nothing there. YouTube grandma did something cute - I’ve been blackout drunk at the science museum knitting shit with pencils - that’s not evidence that pencils are knitting tools. It doesn’t make sense as a textile art tool. The closest might be as a cordage/rope making tool - maaaaybe all of those extra knobs add some kind of tension - but that just doesn’t seem likely either.
It really comes down to - what is your evidence? Why do you think it was a textile art tool for creating mittens?
Knitting metal: https://youtu.be/lADTLozKm0I
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.
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
