Moderating:
This is getting personal.
@GIGObuster , @MrDibble , please drop this discussion of a possible Phrygian connection. You are going in circles and neither of you is going to convince the other.
Just to clarify, that post was not a gallop, it was to point out that the dodecahedrons as a leather or wool tool are not good explanations, far more likely is that there are other reasons for the decorations, and there could be a connection as a device to hold, not only clothes or leather, but as bling to impress others.
For existing examples, do we know if these things are stable on the knobs when placed on a flat surface or wobbly? I would think with 5 knobs, you would have at least 3 touching and provide some stability which was maybe the whole point of the knobs.
Apologies if this 3d rotatable model has been linked to before.
3 feet is inherently stable. 5 is not - all it takes is two to be a bit too long and it could throw it all out of stability.
That looks neat, but can you point at what dodecahedron was used for the scan?
The page just points to the Wikipedia article.
I think it is parody. The other pic reinforces that view:
You can’t get the object on the right from the object on the left. The article could be click-slop, though the author only has 2 articles.
And that’s a flaw in this hypothesis, because the holes are different sizes. Why?
I do tend to believe, though, that whatever their original use (even if it was just “for religious purposes”), they persisted in “use” for some time after that as a doo-dad shelf-filler or paperweight. “What’s that thing for?” “I dunno; I found it my grandpa’s attic after he died, but it looks neat”. So their condition at the time that they were buried need not bear any resemblance to the condition in which they’d actually be used.
Way upthread we had a list of characteristics of the objects that were both common and specific enough that any theory really needed to address.
The wide range of sizes is one that causes a lot of ideas to fail. Pretty much any idea of a utility device falls on that one.
The very consistent and clearly deliberate presence of holes of different sizes - but without consistency of sizes between objects - is another characteristic that ideas fall on. Clearly it matters that there are holes, and that they differ in size. But it doesn’t matter what the exact hole sizes are. Sizes are not distinct enough to be identifiers of a given side.
Absent any records from the time describing these things, we will almost certainly never discover the answer.
Possibly they found that if they made all the holes large, the dodec became wobbly. So they made some large to retrieve as much metal as possible and others smaller to give it more stability. And it was probably mostly guesswork as to how large the holes would be for this. It’s not like they made a huge number of these to get a good feel for the best hole sizes.
Not every example has all holes that differ in size. Some have most (say 8-10) holes that are the same size (within reasonable tolerances for the time) but then pair of opposite holes of a quite different size from those (opposite holes are usually the same-ish size even in the size-variant ones).
By my eyes, there are 2 pairs of holes with similar designs, 2 adjoining and 2 across from each other. I am including the rings in my criteria. A dodecahedron has 12 faces. For the cryptographic hypothesis, it would be convenient if there were 12 unique faces, though I can’t rule out the possibility that their distinguishing characteristic would be in their now-eroded paint or something else that is no longer apparent. This isn’t decisive, since the 20 nodules each have a triplet of faces to identify them.
Perhaps it’s the ancient equivalent of a photo cube or something similar. The varying holes would permit varying sized portraits, the decoration is decorative, the beauty of the object is aesthetic, the corners permit it to display small drawings in any orientation. It would also make a decent cover story for a cryptic application (as well as giving each side a unique design). This would also be a possible store of value (the objects have reportedly been found around coins). I trust someone’s mother would love it.
What’s missing is an antecedent and decedent for this utilitarian object. I’m not an archeologist, so I can’t rule out that they exist. I don’t think the encryption hypothesis requires such a chronological chain of objects, but the homey picture display hypothesis does. Then there’s the issue of how well these objects would perform their hypothesized task. I’d want to example a couple in person.
Even if the drawings were religious in nature, I wouldn’t expect such a technology to become popular then die out with neither replacement nor antecedent.
…or maybe the dodecahedron could be a customized memento (with drawings of family) for a general or merchant on the move. Same objections. Also, if the pics were made of paper, someone would consider making the attachments out of wood or canvas. And if that happened, we’d get archeological evidence.
Which is perhaps the meta rule of dodecahedrons.
- Any rule may be broken. But only enough to confound theories.
The pair of opposite holes that are different to the rest does appear to be near constant aspect. They often appear much larger and not as well finished. Which leads to some speculation that these were the holes used to support the inner part of the casting mould.
Highly doubtful, the Romans didn’t have paper.
Only by people who don’t know how lost wax casting works - there is nothing to support there - this was gone into in some detail before in this thread, more than two years ago (March 2023).
As pointed before, the area with the biggest holes (less weight) is the one more likely to come on top.
Only if the other holes are part of the original pattern and not cut after the fact. The holes on a lot of the objects look more like they were cut with a scorper and trammel tool after it was cast. They are very crisp. More so than other cast edges. Here I am channeling Clickspring, but he makes a good case for cutting round holes like this. Moreover the concentric circle decorations on some objects look a lot like they were cut in this manner.
The most telling thing IMHO is that the two largest holes on many objects are opposite, and appear much less well defined than the others. Again, there is no absolute rule. But this geometry is suggestive.
My opinion of what Dodecahedrons are for:
At the height of the Roman Empire, the Romans controlled everything around the Mediterranean Sea. At the same time they had many hundreds of miles of roads built throughout Europe and managed hundreds of mines, including many gold mines.
The mines were mostly in Northern and Western Europe and were manned by the local people and always under Roman control. The locals also processed that which was removed from the mines, including the gold.
During this same time a certain type of jewelry, like necklaces and bracelets that included hollow braided gold ‘rope’ like elements made from gold wire were very popular with all these rich Romans.
Most all of this kind of finished gold jewelry that has been found is found around the Mediterranean Sea, where it was purchased and worn by those that could afford it. Most all of the Dodechahedrons were found in North and North Eastern Europe, where the mines were and the ore was processed and the wire made and the gold ‘rope’ was produced and the jewelry made from it.
The Dodechahedrons were tools used to weave the hollow gold wire ropes of various diameters. It’s that simple. In my opinion of course.
I would post pictures from my imgur account if I knew how, AND I knew how to preview those posts to verify what they would look like before I posted them.
I have pictures of maps of the boundaries of the Roman Empire, maps of the Roman roads throughout Europe at the time and where the Roman controlled mines were. If I can’t preview them? I won’t even try to post them.