Roman Tiddly-Winks?
Good a guess as any, and better than most.
That looks to be a very comprehensive study.
Time to see what modern automated translation can do.
It seems to go through a few of the modern theories as to function in some depth.
Probably the only missing detail is that for all bar a few items there is no indication of the geometry of the hole placement. Just lists of diameters.
What is also apparent and listed in the other paper is that the dodecahedra fall into a number of clear categories. Possibly even the same maker.
Yes. I am curious what the Saegewerk site means by categorizing them as ‘Type 1A’, ‘Type 2B’, etc.
So I spent some time reading the translations of the above linked documents.
A few interesting snippets.
They seem to have been made over a period of up to 200 years, certainly over 100 years, centred on about 200CE. The length of time suggests something other than a fad trinket.
Whilst the dodecahedra were lost wax cast, they were not cast as a finished item. The corner knobs were added afterwards and are on pins soldered into place. Also, only the two largest holes were present in the cast piece. They are clearly the holes needed to allow for casting a hollow piece. The remaining holes were added by boring out the faces. Similarly, a lot of the decoration was added after casting. Either engraved or hammered in. There is also one fabricated in iron.
The two largest holes are often not as well finished as the rest (being the only cast holes this is perhaps not a surprise.) At least one dodecahedron shown traces of wear on the large holes - perhaps evidence that it was placed on a staff. But only this one.
There are no two pieces that are the same.
In terms of rarity, there doesn’t seem to be any thought that they were especially rare. That they turn up in a huge range of places is however interesting. There is no consistency. One has been found in a woman’s grave, another in a horde of coins, then baths, army barracks… They don’t congregate in any special sort of place. Many may well have been simply lost. But they do congregate in regions of Celtic influence.
R. Nouwen’s book covers just about all the theories we have discussed and more. He notes that for every theory that seems supported by a given dodecahedron, there other dodecahedra that demolish it. He makes a lot about the possibility of a mixed Celtic Platonic religious melange.
Saegewerk seems to provide no indication as the the taxonomy hinted at, OTOH, a classification into the nature of adornment is an obvious start. No adornment, concentric circles, pentagons, cut ridges, is likely it.
The hole diameters in Nouwen are provided in a systematic manner, that should it be of value allows 3D reconstruction of the hole locations. They are provided in pairs, 1-12; 2-10; 3- 11; 4-7; 5-8; 6-9. He notes that these were provided by various curators and may not be reliable.
I got excited when I saw a paper mentioning a silver one had been found in Geneva, but it turned out that it was talking about the zodiacal solid one - which it was listing among the total. So be aware that the total counts may not be 100% accurate.
That paper also introduced me to this find:
Note that it’s a globe, not a D12. And it has some very non-round holes. And a distinct base side. And being found by detectorists, also no archaeological context.
This is not always the case. Some are stated to have integral knobs, and appear so in photos.
No, that’s right.
I discussed this before. Hundreds of any one metal item (except coins) is a frankly amazing rate of recovery - I mean, every Roman legionary had at least one gladius and galea during service, but we’ve only found a few thousand of each, max. Even less loricae, and even less scuta.
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I realized I didn’t actually link the paper I mentioned. Here it is:
The only thing these all seem to have in common is that they are a geometric shape with knobs on. This does (kind of disappointingly) tend to suggest that the purpose was some ceremonial or symbolic purpose.
More or less anything clever and practical you can do with one of the big, fancy ones just doesn’t work with the little rough ones.
I suppose it’s possible that some of them are purely symbolic and others do have actual utility - for example a set of scales is a common symbol for justice or fairness, but also functional sets of scales exist.
So the little ones that look like staff-toppers might have been the symbol indicating that the person bearing the staff with the knobbly thing, was part of the group of people authorised or having the knowledge to use the big fancy knobbly thing for whatever more specific purpose it may have had.
Edit: or the symbolic and practical versions might not have been very well connected at all. After all the people who use scales as a symbol aren’t necessarily in the business of using scales to actually weigh things. Point is, there are things that exist in symbolic form, while the real practical form also exists and is used.
I agree that “some of them actually functional, and others merely symbolic of the functional thing” sounds promising, as a way of explaining some of the differences. Or it would, if we could even find a good function for any of them. My biggest hang-up with any of the proposed functions is that, for any given function, there’s some other, much simpler, way of making something with the same function (and most of the functions are qualitatively different enough that it doesn’t make sense to have a multi-purpose object: You’d never have something that was both a surveying instrument and a gaming piece, for instance).
I mean it could still be that they are all symbolic or ornamental, and the range of size and qualities we see just represents a competition between people trying to be more and more ostentatious.
Or it could be that the big fancy well made ones are ornamental and the little rough ones had some practical purpose - spinning wheels are a bit like that - if you find one that looks like it was made from broken chairs and driftwood and random nails and wire, it was probably used for spinning wool. If you find one that looks beautiful with finely turned spokes and is finished and polished to a high gloss with brass fittings, it’s probably a music box.
The thimble in a monopoly set isn’t that different from a real thimble.
Yeah, unless the intent was to make the process deliberately non-simple - take modern coffee making devices for example - there are simple ones that get the job done and whilst there are different ways to get the job done, there are machines that are complex just to make the process feel more sciency or otherwise imbue an aesthetic feel …but then we’re pretty much back to ritual again.
I don’t get the disappointment. Despite the notion that it’s an over-applied nail for archaeologists’ hammer, it is the case that a lot of archaeological artefacts were just ceremonial or symbolic, because religion and ceremony played a very large part in people’s lives.
Yes, because a thimble is a small object that most people would be expected to have lying around the house. The original version of Monopoly didn’t even include the playing pieces at all, but just suggested that people use whatever odd items they had at hand (thimbles, or coins, or chess pieces, or the like).
But a surveying tool isn’t something that everyone would have around the house (even if it might be something every military company has), and you certainly wouldn’t modify the design of a surveying tool (or even of a thimble) just to make it more suitable as a gaming piece.
With the dodecahedrons, you could argue “It’s a Platonic solid because it’s meant to be used as a die”. And you could argue “It has parallel faces with holes in them because it’s meant to be used as a surveying instrument”. But you can’t really argue “It has parallel faces with holes so it can be used as a surveying instrument, and it’s a Platonic solid so it can be used as a die”. You need to either explain why the instrument is a dodecahedron, or explain why the die has holes.
If they found one stamped with the Leatherman brand name, I would buy this argument. 
Ah, i misunderstood you. I am sure you could have a surveying instrument that was used (or copied smaller) to be a gaming piece. But yes, no one would design an awkward surveying instrument just so it could also be used as a gaming piece. Or, maybe as a weird one-off, but not as a commonly used thing.
I guess even a knife with a built in bottle-cap opener has complications required by both functions. But we see at least as many pure knives and pure church keys. I’d expect to see the single-use objects, too.
Can anyone think of a modern, multi-purpose tool where it’s not immediately obvious that it even is multi-purpose?
All of the examples I can think of, even if you had no idea how to use the various functions, still scream ‘multi-purpose’ - like a Leatherman or Swiss army knife - it’s got all these different bits that swing out, and they can’t all be swung out at once.
I mean, I suppose a claw hammer is kind of multi-purpose (banging in nails and pulling them out), but I am thinking more of obviously diverse purposes.
Some of the credit-card sized multi-tools could be confusing at first glace.
Especially for someone who’s unaware of their existence.
I was thinking of those, too.