The claim is that the rope initially comes out as a thick tube with a big space down the middle. Then they pull it through successively smaller holes, and the tube gets narrower each time.
The 12 faces of the object should mean something. Moons, months of the year, zodiac signs?
None of these 12 facets have any numbering to denote anything, so all of the faces meanings must be obvious to the user. As would be the size of the holes, which are not numbered in any way.
The little ball ‘feet’ on the object must have use or meaning, we don’t see them without these balls. We see none of these objects without them, no flat ones without the ball feet. They do not sit flat on the table. What was the purpose for them? Rollling them like dice?
None of thes objects found have any wear on them as if they had been used as a tool doing anything. They do not seem to be usefull.
They were only found in the northern area of the Roman Empire, late in the game, that could be significant or meaningless.
I think it was a game. Game unknown. If you found one of those games common in Cracker Barrel, where you jump the pegs and try to end up with the last peg in the center to win, and it didn’t have any pegs left, what would you make of it as as future archaeologlist?
A game.
Pointed at before too, you need to have a wider opening were you can add more weight to the side that has the smallest opening. To make it more likely to get the opposite side up. (that is for the idea that it was used as a die for fortune telling)
Or, (as the other idea I have goes) Clothing, strings or thin leather straps passed trough the wide holes, the smaller hole is were they attached the dodecahedron to the metal shoulders or the chest armor. The studs and the metal that remained on the outside was more bling to show by the Roman commander.
I think the only explanation that makes sense is that it’s a religious symbol, of some unidentified cult, and it’s meaning has been lost. Trying to fathom its use is like trying to fathom the use of a crucifix, or star of David.
Well that wouldn’t work. If you have a large hole opposite a small hole, how do you use the large hole? Once the cord goes through the large hole into the dodeca, it has to come out somewhere.
Plus, as with so many explanations, you have to ask, why a dodecahedron? It’d be much easier to make a thing like that as just a single flat plate of metal with various holes in it.
Again, if that were the goal, you’d have 11 of the 12 faces with as wide an opening as you could get.
Or a non-representational decorative object. Folks made them just because they looked neat.
Not necessarily, some of the best hacks to win with dice are not about ensuring a 100% chance for the top choice, one just has to have a preponderance for the most likely images or numbers to end on top.
OK, so you only want a small bias for your favored side. But it still doesn’t make sense to have a different bias for every side.
And there are probably less obvious ways to bias such a thing, too. Even covered with leather, a mark could feel the size of the holes through the leather. Why not instead put lumps of lead on the inside, or hide higher-density lead within the lower-density bronze?
It does. But they were not adverse to a lot of post-casting work. The knobs are soldered on with pins. Why not cast them as well?
The objects do seem to have had a lot of effort put into sitting flat on every face. That isn’t trivial to get right with 5 feet per face, each needing to work for three faces. Maybe it was easier to adjust the knobs added this way. I was really surprised they were not cast as part of the basic form. Not having the knobs present after casting makes post-processing work easier.
Any scrap from post work would almost certainly have been saved for future casting.
Overall the wretched things have a lot of curious properties that confound easy logic.
No they weren’t, as your own map shows.
No they weren’t. Slaves could be from literally anywhere in the empire.
No they weren’t. Arguably North and Northwestern Europe, yes.
Why then were they only found nowhere near where the gold was mined OR where the market for the gold wire ropes was, according to you? The gold was mined in Spain and SE Europe, sent to Gaul and Britannia, turned into ropes, then shipped back again to the Med … why?
I have still to find a modern psychic or augur that allows one to touch their “sacred” tools. Human nature as it is, I do think that applied too in ancient times.
In Spain, not so much Dacia, where it was a slave-heavy mix (and I’m counting debt slavery and criminal convicts in as slaves, there)
Aah, I see your point now.
Sure - now provide the evidence for the workshops unique to that region, for the association of the dodecahedra with workshops at all, or for the wear marks on the dodecahedra from working all that wire.
Also provide a convincing argument for why these tools have not been found at the goldsmiths’ workshops excavated in Pompei, Herculaneum or Rome.
.
AFAIK, some of them are integral - the Camarthen one, for example.
Surely you just make them slightly oversize all around and then use a flat abrasive surface to dial in each side.
You still never recover all the metal.
Maybe that was the point. 
And there’s some sense in using slaves in places far from where they’re from. That makes it harder for them to run away to seek the help of friends or family.
So, there are three theories that i find persuasive so far:
- decorative knick knack
- ceremonial/religious object
- coding device
I gotta say, the arguments for “coding device” seemed pretty persuasive. But both ceremonial and decorative objects are so common everywhere there are people that they have to be the default. All three of these answer the question of “why only in this region”, because they all would depend on local culture.
Anything purely practical in nature (and not culturally dependant) would surely be found elsewhere in the Roman empire. That’s why I’d reject the “weave gold braids” argument out of hand, even if the objects were good for that (and they looks mediocre at best for that use.)
Look up “French knitter” or “Knitting Nancy” or “Spool knitter”.
Or don’t.
I guess it’s not possible to post a youtube video in here.
Hm, that is something that uses five knobs arranged around a hole. Still doesn’t explain why a dodecahedron instead of just, well, a spool, but it’s something, at least.
That type of wire braiding (trichinopoly chain braiding) has been discussed previously in this thread on June 3, 2025. Mangetout listed some problems with that theory.
The timing does not work for Gallo-Roman dodecahedrons and trichinopoly chain braiding. See this post. Summarizing: Dies for pulling weaving-quality wire were invented a few hundred years after dodecahedrons were made. Trichinopoly chain braiding was invented after the wire was available.
I didn’t have to look it up, I’ve used those. And I’ve also played extensively with soft wire. And having done those, I’m quite certain that’s not what the dodecahedra were for.
Could you manage to do that? Yes. Would it be a widespread thing? Hell no.
I’m not sure what object/accessory/bracelet you are discussing. Is it the Chinese artifact in this previous post? Bead-sized gold dodecahedrons have also been found in archaeological digs at Khao Sam Kaeo, in eastern peninsular Thailand (Pryce et al., 2008) and at Oc Eo in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam (Malleret, 1962). There is also an image of a bead from Burma/Myanmar and the Vietnamese one in this post. The Burmese one is on top and the Vietnamese one is on the bottom.
The Asian archaeological finds of dodecahedral beads tend to date to them as being crafted around 300 years before the Gallo-Roman dodecahedrons.
Do we have any examples of non-mysterious tchotchke from the Roman empire?
If you Google for images using “gallo roman bronze artifact” as your search terms, you can find locks, keys, buckles, naughty statues of the fertility god Priapus, bowls, harness fittings, skillets, candlesticks, animal figurines, coins, fibulae, etc. There does not seem to be much argument about any of those.