history

"i just think they're neat"

Sex

Or they're just decorations idk

They were also found commonly in the Pyu states (Burma), Óc Eo (Southern Vietnam), Khao Sam Kaeo (Peninsular Thailand), and Hepu (Guangxi)

https://journals.openedition.org/archeosciences/docannexe/image/2072/img-3.jpg
https://journals.openedition.org/archeosciences/2072

https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA398627717&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=0003598X&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=nysl_oweb&isGeoAuthType=true&aty=geo

If they got there through Roman trade or cultural diffusion, it's interesting how they seemingly skipped over India and China. Peninsular Thailand is a very remote place!

Also the ones from Rome come mostly from France, which is also interesting

I drew a map of the SEA sites they're found in

So it's definitely not a Silk Road trade route, and probably ended up there through Indian ocean trade routes. Yet, they somehow seem to be absent from India.

It may also indicate that the majority of Rome's high-skill blacksmiths came from France. The wiki article states they may have been used as a "test" to display the skill of a blacksmith, which if true, would also mean they had no commercial purpose, and that their presence in SEA was the first time they were sold as items of value. The SEA ones also seem to be more commonly made of gold instead of bronze, which further supports this. The smallest ones in Europe were a small 1.6 inches in diameter, which further supports this, showing off one's metalworking intricacy.

wild inductive theory is that some merchant from Southeast Asia physically went to Europe, maybe even France, saw them, thought they were cool and brought back the idea, eventually developing a market in the local area and spreading it to other SEA states and eventually producing them indigenously. Otherwise it can't be explained why they're absent from India and the Mideast.

Idk, they look like they're meant to hold the prince of an alien race imprisoned in an astral realm to me.

They were probably used for DnD before Romans discovered numbers; they'd get in an encounter, roll one of these and then point to the top facing section and tell the Coliseum Master "I got one of those". I'd imagine they were probably really eager to finally find numbers to make the whole process much easier.

That or they were still trying to discover lameness; they'd put them on the front doorstep of someone they disliked and it was the starting point of the phrase "you've just been served" except they'd be like "you've just been diced".

The ones with holes are for measuring servings of spaghetti.

maybe it's how smiths proved their competency?

I can smith to any specification you like, nothing is too complicated! Don't believe me? Just look at my Intricate Thing!

I want to fuck the roman dodecahedron

she do on my deca til i hedron

The ancient roman equivalent of desk decoration. Something you think looks nice, so you bring it to the office and set it on your desktop.

That or as someone else said you can do some s*x with it.

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Prime_Alchemical_Resonator

You use them for fossil crafting, of course.

Lmao you guys don't know what these were for

I wish they'd make a comeback

It's how people played D&D before dice were invented

The bottom right looks so much like the astral prism from BG3.

I can't help but wonder if making the prism look like that is intentional.

The Romans just thought they were neat

they shoved it up their asses

Maybe they were used together with rope/chain to try to reign in their grotesquely vivid Italian body language?

What is art?

for the curved one, if they actually worked out the angles and rate of curvature, that's pretty cool

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumble_Ball?wprov=sfla1

Probably something mundane and useful, but in a weird culture way that seems stupid.

Like those are for wiping your ass or something.

I just think of the meme about an old granny using these to knit.

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-184

Huh, I knew I vaguely saw the BG3 artifact from somewhere before

the holes seems designed to fit on a cone, the nodes for string since they are undercut
below has further in-depth speculation, suggests game or calendar and rules out several guesses
https://tinkerings.org/2020/06/17/roman-dodecahedrons-part-i/
https://tinkerings.org/2020/06/17/roman-dodecahedrons-part-ii/
https://tinkerings.org/2020/12/25/roman-dodecahedrons-part-iii/
https://tinkerings.org/2020/12/25/roman-dodecahedrons-part-iv/




an icosahedron has 30 edges (days?) and 12 faces (months?)

they're made to be pondered