The Wiki entry notes that several of the 100+ found were associated with coin hoards, indicating that the owners must have thought they valuable or they were expensive. This tends to discount the notion that they didn’t have a function or were merely decorative, or were of a completely mundane utilitarian purpose.
Perhaps folks were willing to pay big bucks for warm gloves.
A bronze object in the classical era would be at least as valuable as the same weight of bronze coins. So it’s not too suprising people would sometimes store them together, especially if the owner had no other use for the object.
I do wonder if there hadn’t been dodecahedra made of wood. My understanding is that few, if any, wooden objects from the Roman Empire have survived, so it wouldn’t be surprising if these hadn’t. Metal was a rather expensive material in those days, so if these had a utilitarian purpose, you’d expect cheaper ones to be wooden. If they were purely “ritual” or other non-utilitarian, then I could see only metal. But there were a few stone ones, so probably wooden ones too.
They originally contained little bells. They were cat toys.
Reviving this thread to link to a fairly comprehensive surveyof available theories.
Personally I think the range finder or Astronomical device theories are the most plausible. Although the glovemaker fits the distribution of finds a bit better I guess.
Just checked: no one posting to this thread has used one of these as their avatar yet. Seems like an obvious in-board reference.
Since the Romans were engineers, it seems like these were multi-tools/ jigs. They’re obviously designed to last and built to some kind of specification. Because they have been mostly found around France & the UK, my denarius says one of those uses was as a field repair device for soldiers. Some types of pilum were meant to be single use held together with wooden pins but there’s no way a Roman soldier would leave weapons behind after battle. Referring to a previous post, the legions conquered so much because they didn’t need to spend time returning home to refit. If a soldier found a broken pilum, he could use a dodecahedron to determine which size pin to use during repair. On the other hand if he found a broken arrow he could use a dodecahedron to make sure a replacement shaft was the right diameter to fit the tip. The Chinese had figured out whistling arrow tips by the first century BCE so is it possible these could make a noise traveling at the right speed? As a bonus he could use it for thread to darn his tunic and it made a great cat toy when he got home.
They are? Because they are ALL different - in overall size, and the size and pairing of holes.
And why the knobs?
Why only soldiers from European areas, not North Africa, the Balkans, or the Middle East?
Yep. Especially since, as I said in the other, more recent thread: those were often the same soldiers.