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Another Mysterious Roman Dodecahedron Has Been Unearthed in England
(www.smithsonianmag.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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Oh so no idea what they were for, got it. I can't believe news orgs still seem not to have caught on about "ritual" artifacts...
Maybe the romans just played a lot of barbarian characters?
I hate to break it to you, but ritual and religion have been a thing forever.
Walk into most homes today, and you'll find a bunch of ritual objects. Crosses, Rosary Beads, Menorahs, and dozens of other every day objects that you'd never think twice about.
The ancient world had even more such objects.
A fun example that I can think of off the top of my head is the demon trapping bowl. It was common in parts of the Middle East, and how it worked is you'd write a bunch of incantations on the inside of the bowl in a spiral down to the center, and then bury it upside down under the main entrance to your home.
That's clearly a ritual object. It serves no other purpose.
These dodecahedra might be the same. After all, there are 12 zodiac and playing with the meaning of the zodiac was quite popular in the Roman world at various times.
A bit late replying, but: Sorry, I should maybe have been more clear. This is a very well documented in-joke that I was referencing. It's a catchall category; "Ritual" is the label given to objects that archeologists don't have a clue what are. This is extremely prevalent, and if you ask any archeologist about it they'll verify this.
It's a well known joke for armchair archeologists.
For the people who work in the field, they know damn well that often times, "ritual object" is, in fact, the correct answer.
Hell, there are practical tools that were also ritual objects. Because humans can turn everything into part of a religion.
I don't know how to tell you this, but it's not just "armchair" archeologists that use this one. Also, jeeze, coming in excessively hostile to a reply to a 5-day-stale comment.
Ritual object is the correct answer sometimes, but I don't think you've met many archeologists if you're unaware of the scope here. There's many reasons "ritual" became a catchall, the prevalence of modern ritual objects among them (sherds are so miserable that it destroys the capacity for humor?). But I urge you to ask some archeologists, even armchair archeologists, about mayan chicken holes sometime. Its a pretty famous example of "ritual" being proven wrong - but it hilights the extent that "ritual" is just the default explanation for all things that lack strong evidence to explain them.
By the late empire, if you were playing a legion campaign it was pretty standard to run 30-40% barbarians.