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Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

At the Roman baths in Bath, one of the objects you can see is a pair of gambling dice found on site. The plaque charmingly notes that they are loaded.

But also interestingly, they are wooden cubes marked with exactly the same pip pattern we still use today.

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It's amazing - and yet unsurprising, the more I think of it - to think of how little has changed atl least locally.

Pick a random sentence from something written by Thucydides, 2.5 millennia ago, and (barring the nouns) it's probably a completely usual scenario involving people and/or groups of people.

edit: usual not unusual d'oh

Usual, I suspect.

My ability to think one thing and write down another knows no bounds

There is a surviving letter from s famous Roman writer ( sorry forgot the name) to his son studying in Athens, complaining how he is wasting money and not going to classes, yet to finish his studies.

Nabonidus in the 6th century BC sponsored archaeological excavations to learn more about his hero, Sargon of Akkad.

This makes sense, since Sargon probably reigned more than 1500 years before Nabonidus. But it feels unusual to see archaeology in the past. To us, what's the difference between one ancient Mesopotamian king and another?

There are Sumerian dices identical to those we use from 3000 BC. Romans are closer to us than those dices.

dice = plural

die = singular

At an ancient Egyptian exhibit some years back what most fascinated me were small personal items: hand mirrors, tweezers, make-up kits, dice, and other entertainments.

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