A 12 sided object corresponds with the zodiac. I think fortune telling device should be high on the list. Seems odd if this was used by serious astronomers and not mentioned in writing or in pictures, or made in other materials, so I would associate it more with astrology and soothsaying. The particular size and size of the holes sizes don’t matter because it’s mainly a prop.
None of the dodecahedra have faces that are marked with astrological symbols except that one solid dodec that is not at all like the others we’re talking about. So I don’t think the dodecahedra are related to astronomy/astrology. Nor do there seem to be any other symbols that would differentiate the faces from one another.
BTW, up until about 1600 AD, there was no distinction between astrology and astronomy. Although the Romans didn’t go in for astrology so much as other forms of augury (e.g. reading entrails). Which is another strike against them being use for astrology.
The lack of meaningful designs on the faces means the same for any possible function. It makes a useful prop for a fortune teller to make up the meaning of the sides in the manner that best helps an individual client open their purses. The objects are ideal for this purpose unlike most other uses that would require obvious or well known knowledge of their operation. Yet not obvious or well known enough that we have any idea what they were used for.
Astr-ology/onomy has two sides to it, the observation of celestial objects and mythology about them. As you say, the Romans weren’t thrilled with the mythology side and concentrated on the modern in their time advanced science of reading entrails. Using a bronze object repeatedly is much faster as well as less costly and messy than reading entrails.
How do you propose it would work as a fortune telling device? It’s not buikt for throwing like dice, so the astrologer is going to, what? Place it with a particular side up? Very mysterious, that is.
“That’s the beauty of it: It doesn’t do anything.”
I think they would just make a set of six separate taper gauges - IMO it’s a lot easier to pick up the labelled, right size tool from a set, than it is to find the right sized fitting on a multi-sized tool; we should expect to find some sets of taper gauges, at least.
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I’ve said it before, but it’s been a while, so I’ll bring it up again. The dodecahedra appear to correlate with Roman army posts. Another thing that correlates with Roman army posts are the locations of Mithraia, the “churches” of the cult of Mithra. If you compare maps showing the locations of find of dodecahedra and those of Mithraia, there’s a pretty good overlap – except that Mithraea appear to have been found in more places that Dodecahedra have (notably the Iberia Penisula and Turkey. Maybe the Dodecahedron-searchers haven’t been looking hard enough). Or it could be that the overlap simply indicates that both dodecahedra and Mithraism were both associated with the Roman Army, and don’t have any direct correlation at lall.
Locations of Mithraea:
Locations of Dodecahedra:
I will ote, however, that Mithraism is definitely a calendar-based religion, with signs of the zodiac pretty clearly shown in its cultic sculptures, and a celebration that seems to be based on the renewal of the year (sadly, no Mithraic texts have survived to help explain this. I note, however, that it’s recognized that Roman Mithraism is not the same as Persian Zoroastrianism, although it draws its inspiration and imagery from Persia)
So using a dodecahedral solid – which has twelve faces – fits in pretty nicely with something that celebrates a twelve-month year (with twelve zodiacal signs).
That coin showing what might be a dodecahedron and with the word “copia” might indicate a connection, although that’s pretty slim. But I’ll add to the slimness by noting that the cornucopia sometimes shows up in Mithraic art as another symbol of the renewing year. But that’s a stretch.
Bottom line – Dodecahedra might be associated with the cult of Mithras. Both were popular with the Roman Army, and Mithraea and dodecahedra show up in a lot of the same places. Mithraism is an astronomy or astrology-based religion that used the twelve signs of the zodiac in their iconography, which fits with the twelve-sided figures. That’s really it But it’s a not insignificant set of correlations.
I still don’t know and can’t suggest what the dodecahedra were used for, and I feel pretty sure that they had a purpose. They might eve n have been candle-holders. But I’ll note that Romans tended to use oil lamps for lighting, rather than candles ( see here, for instance. But if you’ve seen the output of archaeological digs at Roman sites, you’ll be struck by the number of oil lamps. I’m not sure I’ve even seen a Roman candle-holder – https://www.mithraeum.eu/quaere.php?tag=cornucopia ). On the other hand, Romans DID use candles, but mainly for ritual purposes, which these might have been. And maybe the Roman soldiers preferred candles to oil lamps.
If my suggestion is correct, the use of a twelve-sided figure would probably have been dictated by cultic reasoning, so there’s no need to look for a practical significance to the figures being dodecahedrons having twelve sides. But that doesn’t explain why the things had different sized holes in the sides, with opposing parallel sides having different-sized holes. I can’t say what these were used for, but I suspect it’s not as candle holders.
I went to a garden centre this week. I saw:
Garden water features comprising a half-barrel with a little metal replica of an old-fashioned water pump attached to a board at the back - the pump handle moves and actuates the rod that descends into the body of the pump, but the rod doesn’t feel like it is attached to anything inside. Water comes out of the spout of the pump when you connect power to the submersible electric pump hidden inside the barrel; here’s what that looked like:
Inside the same garden centre, I saw small, indoor water fountains, constructed from cast stone/resin, in the shape of half-barrels, and again, with a little replica of a traditional pump, except this time, the whole of the pump is cast in one piece - the handle doesn’t move (although it still looks like it should) - again, water is pumped out of these from a small electric submersible pump, hidden inside; here’s a picture of a similar thing:
Of course, both of the pumps on these water-features are based on the general appearance of one of these, which has moving parts and an internal mechanism capable of lifting water from a borehole, well or cistern, when the handle is cranked:
Imagine if examples of all three of these were removed from any context and buried until after the human race is gone. An alien archaeologist digs up all three, and unfortunately, some of the internal working parts of the real, functional water pump have rusted away to nothing.
We could imagine arguments that, obviously, it’s not a water pump, because some of them have no moving parts…
Olive oil is a solid substance in an unheated room in a typical British winter. I’ve given up the candle-holder argument, but candles are a popular solution to fats being in a solid phase when you want to burn them.
I’m not saying oil lamps were never used here, before anyone jumps on to slap that idea down, but olive oil would have been imported here, whereas sheep fat or bees wax was available locally.
Good fortune tellers aren’t bound by rules. They’ll take a lock of your hair, a leaf, a dead bug, or something more disgusting, place the object on top of it or place it inside the object, and then tell some lies. Same way it’s done now.
I’m not saying these things are fortune telling devices, but the fit the necessary criteria unlike many other proposed functions. And the lack of an obvious method of operation is a strike against all possible uses.
And I have to add here that a look at roman dice -linked earlier in the tread- (With suspiciously concentric rings around the"peeps" like the dodecahedrons) shows that dice were also used by augurs to tell fortunes, and that Romans did not care much about fair dice. Clearly unfair dice were used and it seems that Augurs cared more about getting better odds to get good tidings for their customers.
Same as today.
I’ve noticed that commonality of motif, but I think it’s just a fairly easy decoration to make - you have a tool with two points on it - one point is dug into the thing you’re decorating and you rotate the tool to inscribe a small circle around the central hole
Actually, I suspect that the Roman army would’ve approved of candles because they’re compact sources that don’t spill and don’t require a separate lamp. And it could be made using animal fats, not requiring olive oil that would’ve have to be imported. That sort of thing would’ve appealed to the military mind, concerned about equipment and long supply lines.
I’ll also point out that ancient candles aren’t quite like what you think of today. I had a candle made in the “Old Country” fashion by my grandmother out of rendered-down beef fat. It was ugly and discolored and smoked a lot. Most people don’t realize that modern candles actually benefitted from two chemical inventions in the 19th century – the separation and use of stearin and the development of paraffin. Before 1800, candles were softer, smellier, and smokier. Unless you went to the considerable trouble of keeping an apiary so you could make beeswax candles, or boiled down something like bayberry, your candles wouldn’t be very pleasant.
Even lamps fed with liquid or solid fats weren’t much better. I keep thinking of Mark Twain’s description of the lamps at King Arthur’s court in A Connecticut Yankee:
Uh, being easy or hard to do is not the point, that “but” “it’s just a fairly easy decoration to make” is not necessary.
Decorations that are easy to make, will be common - so you might see them on different objects that are unrelated
The other perhaps appealing thing (to a military mind) about old fashioned tallow candles, is that in an emergency, they are food.
I still think the three objects depicted in the image you linked look a lot like three different people tried to make something from a description with no picture or physical example, and all interpreted the description slightly differently.
Good god. You are right, but having rendered tallow, this is on the level of “boiling your leather boots” for food. Would not reccomend.
Lard, on the other hand does also stink while in production, but presents a more pleasant product.
That “Might” is also doing a lot of unfounded say so, can you point at other items from those days that had a lot of similar decorations?