This is the crux of it, imho. Given the degree of difficulty in making these things, a proposed solution must strongly hit all of these criteria.
That’s going to be the trending question to St. Peter for a good bit if we don’t figure it out.
“Welcome to Heaven. Have you got any questions?”
“Yeah. Why The Fuck does it have knobs on??!??”
No idea. Would you like to hear about turbulence instead?
Has anyone demonstrated that Roman water pipes came in standard sizes, and that those match the holes?
All of the gauge and measuring device ideas fail for a number of reasons.
- The wide (3:1) variation in sizes of the dodecahedra.
- The inconsistency in hole sizes.
- The lack of any clear unambiguous markings on the sides to indicate which hole you are using.
I’d settle for quantum mechanics.
This is the big blocker for me for every utilitarian example offered, and why the cultic or cultural token explanation rings most true, since that limited occurrence matches the distribution of some other cultic phenomena.
Only one of those is not a precious metal…
Are we thinking of the same thing when we say “retort”? To me, retorts are closed vessels, often with a spout. Retorts are what you heat substances in, not secondary boilers. ou’re describing some sort of water bath. I’m not seeing the use value of the dodecahedron in a water bath as a specific use case.
You could tie a string (or strip of leather, etc.) around the knobs of the face that you plan on using for today’s batch of spears or arrows. That way you don’t accidentally switch faces along the way. Some ended up having patterns inscribed for extra assurance, but the blank ones were common as well.
My mistake. I mean a retort stand or clamp (by which I actually mean something like this:
I’ve been getting this term wrong since secondary school, apparently.
Just for my own peace of mind really, I’ll run my earlier ‘apprentice masterpiece’ hypothesis up against these criteria.
The hypothesis is: this is something that a trainee or apprentice or artisan metalworker would be instructed to make, in order to demonstrate their mastery of one aspect of their craft - possibly they would only be given a (reasonably detailed) spoken or written description of the thing they were supposed to make. The completed object might either be a test piece that they were not allowed to keep, or it might be a portable object that an itinerant craftsperson could carry with them to demonstrate their claimed skill when seeking employment.
Why is it only bronze/brass?
Because (in this hypothesis), it was specifically a thing related to mastery of the craft of metalworking.
Why are the holes differing sizes?
Because the specification for the object included that, as a test of both the skill of interpretation of the instructions, and just the skill of making precise, neat pierced holes in a cast bronze object.
Why is there no consistency of overall size across all examples?
Because not all students passed the test, or perhaps the specification for size was no more than ‘can be carried in one hand’.
Why is there no consistency of inscribed markings across all examples?
Because the written/spoken description of the piece had the potential to be interpreted with some ambiguity (such as ‘the hole in each face is encircled by inscribed marks’).
Why does it have knobs on?
Because they’re difficult to make - the knobs create key opportunities for casting failure if air is allowed to get trapped in parts of the mould.
Why is it found only in a limited part of the Roman empire?
Because there is a documented culture of itinerant apprentice masterpieces in approximately the same geographic area - although documentation of that culture only starts quite a long time after the dating of the found dodecahedra - this could just be a failure of documentation and the culture might have existed there for much longer.
The Roman Empire did not necessarily erase all aspects of existing culture as they expanded into new territory, especially if those cultural aspects happened to be useful.
Why has there apparently never been any useful context for the finds?
Because they were designed to be scrapped and re-used (if an exam piece) or were designed to be carried away from their place of manufacture (if a demonstration sample).
Bonus question: Why are some examples really different? - like the ones that only have tiny holes in the faces, or are botched abominations
As above - because not all students passed the test, or interpreted the specifications correctly. Or maybe those just aren’t the same kind of thing at all.
IANAArchaeologist, but I know what I mean by the term ‘hypothesis’. Nothing here has been particularly rigorously researched by me, and it might just be total wibble, although isn’t that what we’re all doing here?
That is an interesting thought.
One thing about the design is that it is going to be a rotten thing to cast in lost wax. Making sure that liquid metal gets into every nook and cranny and knob, and fills every face properly isn’t going to be trivial. Making it as a test piece doesn’t demand great accuracy or finesse, but does demand that that the salient points of the design are reproduced. Even the interesting stepped circle pattern around some holes would act as an obstacle to a successful casting.
So as a piece that demonstrates, not so much the process of creating an object for lost wax casting, but demonstrates an understanding and mastery of the casting process itself, it would be quite a nice article. That it is described in words easily is a bonus.
I realise that one way in which this hypothesis is unsatisfying is that it’s saying: the purpose of the dodecahedron is to be a good example of one of these things. It’s almost as dead-ended as playing the ‘some ritual purpose’ card.
OK, so a glorified test tube stand?
Very narrow small ceramic or glass balsamarii/ unguentaria were a thing, although usually larger than the holes in most dodecahedra.
I’m still not seeing why only in that region, when we find the vessels everywhere.
And why such a complicated shape when we know they used tripod type holders to hold all types of vessels. Even nifty adjustable folding ones if variability was needed.
I don’t have a very good answer for that. I mean… maybe it corresponds with a region where the climate conditions caused oil or wax based ointments to have a tendency to set hard in the bottles. Not a great answer, I know.
I think it would work if there happened to be a range of smallish glass vials - you just find the hole it fits through, and it’s stopped from falling right through by the smaller opposite hole, then you put it in a pot of water. It’s a bit easier than adjusting something. And it has knobs on so that the vial doesn’t come into contact with the bottom of the pot or pan.
Absolutely not. This is specifically a part of the Empire very affected by the subsequent Völkerwanderung. There is no cultural continuity - many of the people living there in the Middle Ages weren’t even in the Empire at this time, they’re in Scandinavia and far Germania (or the Pontic steppe).
Is there explicit documentation that they brought that culture fresh with them into the area?
Yes. That’s how we know there was a Migration Period in the first place - the changes in material culture. IANAWorkingArchaeologist, either, but it was one of my degrees and I still keep up with the field. The notion that there were that kind of complex in situ cultural holdovers (and you’re talking a very complex cultural holdover here) in Gaul and Germania isn’t something anyone is seriously considering. Too much change in between the Empire and the Late Middle Ages, with no evidence for any such system in between (I mean, where are all the test pieces from the Franks?)
Also, I can’t stress this enough - there is zero evidence for the Romans having that kind of system of testing and masterpieces and the like.
And (this part is just my opinion) this is not masterpiece-level work. Roman bronzes could be much, much more complex than this. Things that would really test an apprentice.
Most Roman glass phials aren’t a consistent size or shape (in fact, a lot of them are kind of skew-wiff because they’re made from recycled glass), they’re highly variable, and don’t really lend themselves to a small set of sizes like you’re proposing.
Also, are these things ever found associated with phials or water bath-type vessels? Doesn’t seem so.
And more importantly - why this and not a small tripod+ring stand?
One of these, basically:
Called a Turner’s Cube. There are surely many thousands of these out there in slightly varying shapes and sizes, but they all use the same basic idea of nested cubes.
They’re totally pointless except as a demonstration of reasonable proficiency on a lathe or mill. A sufficiently advanced one could demonstrate mastery, but usually they’re more of an apprentice project.
if that were true, I’d expect to find some specimen with some variation, eg.:
- non-dodeca - HEDRONS (e.g. icosahedrons, or others, different than 12 faces)
- why no variation to the knobs at the vertices (e.g. ridges to the edges or knobs on the center of the edge instead of vertice)
if many masters were using complex forms for aprentiship-evaluation, I’d expect to see many other similiar but not quite identical shapes of this as well…
I mean its not like the “masters” had some secred 3D-CAD file to work from over 100s of years and 1000s of miles of distance … that never changed
Again, I’d expect some drift in designs if this were a testing-abilities-endeavor, just as professors seem to vary their exam questions …
.
However, the consistancy of 12 faces does trigger a month/zodiak rationale