My own theory is that time travelers left them there to fuck with us, they will be reading this thread and others like it in the 24th century and laughing their asses off, the motherfuckers.
I’m generating some extra CO2 this month just to pay them back.
Enjoy your destroyed ecosystem bastards!, who’s laughing now?.
They’re not useful for weaving, though. They’re not good for anything we can think of. That’s why it’s so interesting to discuss.
More likely the holes were in the casting and then brought to final dimension afterwards. That simplifies casting, saves on bronze and minimizes amount of post-cast refinement needed.
The primary Roman gold mines were in Iberia and Dacia - Southern and Eastern Europe, not Northern and Western.
Slaves. Roman mines were worked by slaves, not locals (well, some of the slaves doubtless were locals, but most likely were not)
Without any wear marks.
And how, exactly, were they used? You can’t really French knit wire over those big knobs, it’s not as elastic as thread is so the loops will stay distorted. Also, it’s plain unnecessary, you can weave wire rope without a device - well, without that device, you still need pliers and a mandrel.. But more importantly - where are the wear marks?
Thread Killa
Possible, but the lack of wear points to a more of a ceremonial/bling purpose. I think that two possibilities are more likely (and more research is needed):
The military connection points to an augur tool used among soldiers in the region.
Or: that the dodecahedrons were, just the bling itself, with a bit of usefulness regarding fancy clothing for special military occasions. I don’t think showing off medals or medallions were a regular thing, it is possible that it was used to hold string or leather straps that had medallions or other fancy pieces of clothing when showing off things, like when using a Phalera for special military celebrations.
The more shiny studs in the brooches, the better!
Red dots where the dodechahedrons have been found. Where the ore was likely processed into wire and where the craftsman who made the wire and the jewelry likely were. And the boundaries of the Roman Empire at the time.
Then there’s all the Roman roads and where all the mines were.
Then there’s all the Roman roads.
Knowing how to preview a potential post would help.
Maybe the Roman Dodecahedrons were souvenirs that the Roman Soldiers carried around to all the Roman military camps
for those of us who don’t want to invest in a 40 minute video – what’s the elevator pitch?
So - you can see that the mines and the artefacts are not concentrated in the same places, right?
Once again - the very same legions that were in this region also were posted at other times to other parts of the Empire where no dodecahedrons have ever been found.
Click on the button in the upper left of the reply window. It has an A in it. That gives you the preview window that we had before. And for those who didn’t like the typeface it had, they’ve changed that to be the same as before.
FWIW, in the above 3D model the two largest holes are not diametrically opposite and one of them opposes a smaller hole. There’s less decoration on the larger holes, but then again there is less room for decoration. The two largest holes are not adjoining, but that makes some structural sense to me.
Papyrus or parchment then. Point being that you would expect some evidence of pictures if our favorite Platonic solid was a picture holder. (Another objection: I’m more than a little fuzzy on the details. If the portraits were on the inside of the dodecahedron, then the nodules look a little large to be merely there as a platform. But if the pics were on the outside (attached by strings), then why the varying sized holes? All purpose answer: aesthetic reasons.)
My general methodology is to come up with an explanation then knock it down. The winning hypothesis being the least improbable. My general fear is that the real answer is ceremonial object, which is boring unless we learn more about the cult or ceremony.
That model is created in Blender, whether it exactly matches any real-world example is not known.
It’s my favoured explanation. I don’t find that boring at all.
Then why are the other sides also varying in hole size? If you just wanted one to come up on top most of the time, you’d make one side as heavy as possible, and the other 11 all as light as possible.
OK, how? Obviously the diameter of the hole isn’t the diameter of the wire rope, because nobody makes or uses gold rope that thick. And how does one use the knobs to braid rope? Can you demonstrate the process using a replica?
The video in post #1085 shows how it’s done.
The Romans utilized locals to work the mines where the mines were located and probably kept almost everyone they could in those areas busy, The Romans then utilized the craftsman that existed elsewhere in Europe to refine the gold, produce the wire and make the jewelry, hence where the dodecahdrons were found and NOT where the mines were.
The massive matrix of Roman roads connecting it all together, with the final products being delivered to the rich and famous Romans that lived closer to the Mediterranean Sea..