Yeah, that (or rather “a decoration”) was my first thought once tools, measuring devices, and other common tasks were eliminated as possibilities. I can look around my house and easily find items that are just decorations, not tools nor other devices, and similar but not identical ones can be found in homes of friends. Without context, some far distant archeologist trying to make sense of these random objects might be similarly mystified.
Although to be fair, if Distance Archeologist is examining our household, they will probably conclude that we worshiped cats or possibly some sort of penguin god.
I’ve been pondering this all day, which is odd considering I’m not male, I hardly ever think about the Roman Empire. But here’s the thing, these mystery objects have 12 sides, which just happens to match the number of gods in the Roman pantheon. Maybe this object is akin to a rosary, a prayer guide? The knobs could represent the stars, which would remind adherents that Jupiter is the Top Dog in the pantheon.
These are really difficult to cast, out of a weird copper alloy. So tricky to make that a common hypothesis is that these are metal smith’s journeyman projects, to become (and prove they are) a master. If all you wanted was a hole and pegs, you’d make it out of wood, like modern ones.
The different size holes don’t actually make different size fingers, as far as I understand, because what’s actually important is the spacing of the pegs.
yeah, i was kind of wondering if maybe the faces could hold wooden or wax tiles with images on them.
though the fact that the different faces have different size holes maybe makes my idea unlikely. ( i’d be curious if the sizes are consistent between the ones they’ve found )
At the risk of being pedantic (I know!) it is stated that the object was found in the midlands of England but also that the finders were in Lancashire which is very much the north of England. Just saying.
Not sure if there is a day I do not think of the Romans (maybe not in any direct Empire context, but Romans in general).
I’ve got family ties in Cologne and other areas of the Rhinelands, so basically it’s Roman all around (especially below).
I’m a botanist, so I have to deal with taxon names based on Latin and Greek, asking myself very often what’s the etymology.
I do like to quote lines from Asterix, and a quick “Ils sont fous” IS the only way to keep my sanity most days.
I do like to quote lines from The Life of Brian. So, even though they go the house for a long time now, I am constantly trodding in their footsteps, and I’m pretty conscious of that.
That doesn’t mean that it’s always that much fun.
Well, and they seem to be dodecaeders. Which is pretty. And a bit awesome.
Seriously though, there is a view from the English-Scottish border that Liverpool/Manchester/South Yorkshire are the North Midlands. They are a long way from the border, and when you get there the actual Midlands are close, so it makes some kind of sense.
She says she does not know how to knit “five of these in a row” (and knits five, individually).
Has anyone looked at the specific sequence of sizes of holes in these things? I.e. are there five adjacent holes that map to small pinkie, three similar sized fingers, and a larger thumb hole, that might produce 5 ‘fingers’ if knitted in sequence in some way that knitted the product of one hole to that of the next?
(And maybe the larger holes were for willy-warmers!)
Just in case it wasn’t clear, I was referring to this meme with my question. But it’s interesting that it actually seems to be true in your case. I don’t think I think that often about the Romans, despite being an archaeologist and them having quite an influence on later times that I’m concerned with. I think once or twice a week is probably accurate for me.
ETA: actually, upon reflection, I’m not quite sure this is accurate. It probably does come up daily in some form or another. For example, it came up on Monday when I talked with a classical archaeologist about Late Antiquity and today I read a new paper on Roman winemaking and saw an article on a newly excavated triumphal arch in Serbia. I can’t remember whether it came up yesterday (outside of this thread, of course) but it might well have.
