I think @Measure_for_Measure had a good point earlier in the thread, objects with a function replace prior objects for that function, and are themselves replaced by newer objects for that function.
That’s what makes these items baffling, you’d think they have a function, but there seems to be no other contemporary object that does a similar function, or could do a similar function. Of course, it’s also a great point that if it were decorative or mystical, there would be clay or bone or wooden versions.
I’m not convinced there’s only one purpose for all these items. It’s possible that a subset were used for one thing and another subset were used for something else. It’s possible those subsets overlap, and possible the subsets were referring to each other. I don’t think there’s enough information to lump them all together as a single thing.
Certainly their variation seems to be the thing that prevents us assigning any singular purpose to them all, but if they are more than one thing, how many different things are they, and how are they divided?
Like, maybe they started as ritual objects for some cult, but after the cult collapsed, they made their way to other owners who used them as shelf-decoration knickknacks, and enough folks found them nifty enough for that that people started making them just for the knickknack market?
That’s certainly possible, and would also, to some extent, explain variation in features, if one of the copy-makers found some things unimportant that were important to the original makers.
Maybe, but some important everyday things might not show up in drawings. Something like toilet paper. OTOH, as far as I know there are no drawings of the pyramids being built or the tools they employed for such. And those tools were in use for many, many years by a society that were prolific draw-ers (in stone)
Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli (sometimes Paciolo) (1446/7-1517) was an Italian mathematician and Franciscan friar, collaborator with Leonardo da Vinci, and seminal contributor to the field now known as accounting. He was also called Luca di Borgo after his birthplace, Borgo Santo Sepolcro, Tuscany.
The table is filled with geometrical tools: slate, chalk, compass, a dodecahedron model and a rhombicuboctahedron half-filed with water is hanging in the air. Pacioli is demonstrating a theorem by Euclid.
The dodecahedron does not appear to be metal, nor does it have any knobs, disappointingly. The c. 1498 dating is also much later. It is nonetheless an exquisite presentation of the dodecahedron oevre from the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy.
I can’t see that that’s related at all. That’s just a classroom demonstration piece, “this is what a dodecahedron looks like”. In modern classrooms, they’re usually plastic, but it’s the same idea.
The ones we’re talking about clearly aren’t for that purpose.
Agreed, not related at all. Different time period, different appearance.
Over at the NY Met there’s a more tantalizing example of dodecahedron earrings from the early 11th century. One of them has features in the dodecahedron corners, another puts the feature in the middle of the surfaces. There are also some irrelevant material from the 1500s, much like the above painting.
A superficial explanation of the knobs is that they hold the bottom face of the dodecahedron up from whatever surface it’s sitting on. Now if there was some plausible purpose to that.
As we have noted previously, the fine tuning of the knobs so that the dodecahedron can sit flat in any orientation is one of the few constants that seems to hint at its purpose. The makers clearly put effort in to achieve this.
Hasn’t helped all that much, but does tend to exclude those mooted uses that don’t need it to sit flat no matter which way up it is.
Not exactly, but we do have Egyptian art of how they moved huge statues, and how they did other stonework.
Just a reminder again that dodecahedrons are naturally-occurring shapes, so to see their use as a motif in widely different time periods is not strange.
The region in which the dodecahedra are found isn’t the best region for preservation of contemporary paintings and drawings. We have surviving examples of mosaic floors, but not so many frescoes. If these things had been in use in Pompeii or Herculaneum, I feel pretty sure we’d be able to look at a painting of someone holding/using one.
Given all of the speculation on what these things might have been, it seems like the truth might just as easily be a disappointment as it might be an exciting revelation.
This is an interesting idea - maybe like the way crosses have become somewhat of a secular jewellery item, including for people with no particular adherence to Christianity.
It might also explain why some of the examples are more precisely-made and apparently-functional than others, that follow similar forms, but don’t look like they shared a common function.
For example (speculation), they could be functional in the sense of being, say, a candle-holder on an altar (wick-and-wax candles being more practical in many parts of the colder northwest empire than lamps burning liquid oil); the dodecahedral shape might have been significant to the cult or sect that wanted these things as candle-holders, and maybe bronze was the only acceptable material for some reason that made sense within the narrative of the members of the cult.
Candles made by repeatedly dipping a wick into liquid wax aren’t necessarily uniform in diameter, so it might have made sense to have different-sized holes in the various faces of the candle-holder - you just find the one that best fits the candle you have in your hand. (Some examples of the artifacts do have traces of wax on them; it has been argued that could be residue from the lost wax casting method, but molten bronze doesn’t really leave a lot of wax in place).
Then maybe later, if the sect drifted into decline and a few people still hung onto pieces of the tradition, there could be examples of the things that are more ornamental than functional - so they are made to sit there with a candle that is never actually lit, or no candle at all (and therefore no need for the weird assorted-sized holes), but still made only of bronze, because that’s what tradition demands.
The isocahedron example even stands a chance of fitting into this imagined backstory - the smaller holes in the faces of that example would be about right to accommodate rush lights (pieces of reed dipped in tallow and burned as short-lived candles).
The originally-functional-then-decorative argument has some legs, I think. One critical factor to this would be to know which examples of the objects are earlier and later within the general period.
Better yet, the Iron Cross, itself a originally a Christian cross stylized and used for secular political & military regalia. Today, it’s still used to indicate the presence of Heavy Metal, white supremacy, leather culture, teen doodles and other things distantly removed from the Jesus cross.
As discussed earlier, I’m not seeing how they could function as a reliable candle-holder. As tempting as this idea might appear at first glance, especially since we have no idea what the function really is, I just really don’t think this is plausible
I’d bet dollars to donuts, this is true. Mysteries are generally only fun while they are mysteries. But the solve is usually mundane.
The fact that so many people that are trying to solve this (dodecahedrons - not Anastasia), I doubt the answer, if it’s ever discovered, will be slap-head moment. It will probably be some mundane trivia about their lives we didn’t know about.
Dipped candles are typically somewhat cylindrical, with a base that tapers or rounds off - you find the pair of holes where the larger one matches the general diameter of the candle and place that facing up; the candle is inserted into this and the smaller hole at the bottom constrains the tapered base of the candle.
Of course, the dodecahedron is way more elaborate than it needs to be, just to be a candle-holder, but if it is a ceremonial candle-holder, it can be as weird as the ceremony requires.
That thing in post #516 is 3 inches tall, who’s sticking a candle in that? You lose 3" of every candle just to… keep it upright? Don’t try to tell me that sticking some wonky dipped candle into a dodecahedron is going to work better than sticking it in a regular candle holder. MFer is going to rattle around like hell.
No, not just to keep it upright - the hypothesis was about it being that shape for some reason important to a cult or sect, and also being a candle-holder. I don’t care if you disagree with that idea, but at least pay attention to what it was.
It’s a terrible candle holder. It’s like sticking a candle in a coffee mug. Ok, it’s in something but a block of wood with a hole in it works better and costs nothing, and you don’t have to pick wax out of your pretty doodad when you’re done.
Probably the best argument against it being a candle holder - not that you have to clean it, but if they were normally used to hold candles, some of them should have had wax residue
