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Comment by femto | Hacker News Reader

Gavin Smith (Robots and Dinosaurs) has a theory that they are calendars. He has an interesting series of articles in which he tries to recreate their use.

https://tinkerings.org/2020/06/17/roman-dodecahedrons-part-i...

https://tinkerings.org/2020/12/25/roman-dodecahedrons-part-i...

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A supporting tidbit that I didn't see mentioned is that these seem to appear not long after the switch to a 12 month calendar. Julius Caesar made the 12 month calendar official in 46 BC, and the earliest of these cubes appears around the 2nd century AD (though I saw a couple sources mentioning the first century).

The abundance in military sites still seems consistent. Up until then, the calendar was held in alignment with the seasons by adding months, nearly at random (for example, they were sometimes used to extend/shorten the tenure of politicians). They basically ignored 50 or 60 days a year, and made months up to cover that. If you're away at war, you don't get those messages, and your calendar no longer reflects the seasons or anything.

If I were taking a wild guess, I agree it's a calendar, and I would specifically guess it was used for pay schedules for the soldiers. Rome started paying its soldiers around the end of the 2nd century BC, and they paid monthly from what I can tell.

The evolution seems natural. Rome starts paying soldiers. Soldiers get upset that while at war, their months don't line up with Rome's months due to not getting the memo about randomly added months. Rome institutes a standard calendar for many reasons, one of which is to stop having hoards of armed people angry about not getting paid correctly. Now that the calendar is standard enough to follow while away from Rome, a device is invented to track the months so that soldiers get paid on time and it feels more transparent than the "just trust me" of old.

I think it also provides an adequate explanation for why they were made of expensive materials. The calendar was not just for tracking time, it was directly associated with the wealth of the Roman empire, their ability to pay their soldiers. It's more reassuring when they guy with the brass calendar says you'll get paid on time than when the guy with a wooden one does it.

But if they were used for pay we should have some sort of documentation. There would be mention of them in diaries, ledgers or artwork just like most every other aspect of Roman military life. There would be a story about one being lost on campaign, resulting in pay errors. There would a few on a mural depicting an accountant's or officer's daily life.

I think they are something more mundane. Pocket candle holder seems plausible. But the flip side is that with mundane items we should see greater diversity across the empire. The fact that we don't suggest a tie to something universal like religion or politics. Maybe they were a calling card, proof that the bearer was a member of a particular group or cult.

AFAIK, we don’t have a lot of “daily life” text from early Roman times. We have architecture and stone/tile art, from which we learn a lot about culture. And we have major milestones where those justified documentation. “Soldiers: how you get paid” is not likely in any of what we have. And it may not have been written; literacy was not high.

I really like this theory, especially because it accounts for the varying hole sizes, adjoined balls, and the 12 sides and 30 edges that only a dodecahedron could provide. None of the other theories account for all of these unique attributes.

The knitting tool does without adding a stick that was never found even near any romian dodecahedrons.

The mental floss article mentions one was found on a decayed staff. The knitting theory seems like it could be fulfilled with a far simpler instrument IMHO.

If you look at modern shortcut knitting equipment like knittingboard.com it looks pretty similar. It sounds more and more like shark tank gadget of the roman empire.

With a staff, not on it.

The knitting theory is falsified by the existence of the icosahedrons, isn’t it?

Just terrific. Not the just content. But the whole process of speculation, digging, testing theories, sharing ideas on a blog. Scholarship outside of academia. Feels old school somehow.

I hope he's proven correct.

the one without holes has different sized nodules which would also correlate with counting

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