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The Norton Disney Dodecahedron

🕑 Added 2024-09-26 19:43:30 +0000 UTC

Comments

Roger Mills

Guy did one of his YT Classical and Ancient Civilisation vids on one of these a couple of weeks ago.

Cheryl Kurucz

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David Dearden

Does anybody have any idea on how they were made. It looks like it was cast but it would have to be a very complex mould.

Leah Kotok

Perhaps the dodecahedron is used to measure portions of spaghetti depending on how many people are coming to dinner. ;)

Leah Kotok

The Phantom Tollbooth is my favorite, and always my first thought when I hear Dodecahedron.

Linda Hendry

Don't know who you thought you were replying to Alan but I made no mention of lead and a candle holder is not a toy. It was a vital piece of equipment before gas and electricity. The holders like this stone example were extremely useful - and still are because any thickness of candle fits them.

Alan McMillan

Remember, lead was not known to be dangerous! And I doubt it was a toy. Sorry!

Kristie

This was my thought! Im sure my kids had loads of things like this to chew on or chuck around when they were babies…not made of lead alloy though 😆

Linda Hendry

The candle holder thesis is the best one as the Romans did make candles. A bit like this one. https://www.etsy.com/listing/1760583461/vintage-marble-stone-cube-taper

Kerry Hennigan

I love the idea of it being used to dispense dog treats!!! 👌

Penny K

Do the sizes of the holes align with the sizes of coins? As a D&D player, I want to believe it's part of a game. Put something inside it and roll it. See if you get the larger hole on the bottom and the object falls out. Even better if the object is a coin.

Andy Quick

Yes, the Romans were a mystical people. It's only in the post-Enlightenment world that maths have been pursued as a scientific discipline, apart from mysticism.

Elizabeth Neill

Interesting hypotheses! Denise, your idea makes me think of the word puzzle early Christians liked to put on their houses to show they were in Christians, but only to other Christians because it was a code.

Denise Tiller

I think it's a mystical/astrological/religious symbol. It's one of the five platonic solids--tetrahedron (4 sides-fire), icosahedron (20 sides, water) Octahedron (8 sides, air), cube (six sides, earth) and dodecahedron (12 sides, cosmos). Greeks--cosmos-12 astrological signs. Everything about it is mathmagic--12 pentagons, all the edges are equal, so are the surfaces and angles. In the Phantom Tollbooth, the dodecahedron introduces Milo to the Mathemagician and the mysteries of math. Written by Norton Juster. The author was an architect, it wasn't an accident. Maybe the Celts and druids adopted it from ancient Greeks and Romans embraced Greek culture.

Peter H

Since it's using a base of 12, I'd be thinking 'time' somehow. Possibly with a sundial/gnomon arrangement. Knitting is a great idea, but there'd be a lot more of them.

Eggs Ackley

Could be a measuring tool for determining admission price to a brothel. 🫣🤭

Andy Quick

Maybe the dodecahedra are from a Roman math professor :). I suggest that you get a geometer to study it to see if there is a pattern to the arrangement of the holes.

Charr Skirvin

Is the dodecahedron necessarily Roman? The designs look Celtic to me. They remind me of game pieces that can be rolled across the ground (or some other surface) as in bocce ball.

Christopher Samuel

This article was interesting looking at various theories (and has two parts with the second part giving their idea): https://tinkerings.org/2020/06/17/roman-dodecahedrons-part-i/comment-page-1/ Also links to examples that look very similar (though much smaller) from Asia mentioned (with photos) in this journal article "Gold in early Southeast Asia": https://journals.openedition.org/archeosciences/2072 "The polyhedral gold bead from Khao Sam Kaeo, in eastern peninsular Thailand, is stylistically identical to those from Oc Eo in the Mekong Delta, and to numerous similar beads from Pyu sites in Burma."

Warrick J Foote

Keep the great work going.. We all cheering you on

Cheryl Kurucz

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Jessica Brisbane

I am not a metallurgist, but that sounds like a relatively soft alloy. There should be wear marks, possibly microscopic, from whatever it was used for

ali Servan

I'm going with gloves.

P Maria Galloway

I have heard they were used for knitting socks, which tracks with them not being seen in warmer climates, like Spain and Greece. Maybe Italy had enough local knitters to not need a portable knitting aid.

Martha Berryman

Suggesting it is Pure Aesthetic Art Work, with no functional purpose beyond Beauty.

Barbara Shaw

Could it be for checking or standardising the sizes of turned wood items

Wessex-Wyvern

Have you seen the recent discussions on Guy de la Bedoyère's channel? Well worth checking out 😉

Mandy Kolbe

There was a video on YouTube I saw a while back where someone named Amy Gaines proposed that they were used for making metal chains with a single continuous length of wire, and that the different sized holes were a way to narrow the gauge of the final chain. Not sure if that has been formally evaluated though.

Mea Cadwell

There are Youtube videos showing knitting with yarn and metalwork

Paul Faulkner

A geometric puzzle through time. Perhaps there was something else that went with it - an organic component that hasn't survived, leaving just the metallic component?