Photo caption: "Two dodecahedra and an icosahedron on display in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, Germany."

Roman dodecahedron

A Roman dodecahedron or Gallo-Roman dodecahedron is a small hollow object made of copper alloy which has been cast into a regular dodecahedral shape: twelve flat pentagonal faces, each face having a circular hole of varying diameter in the middle, the holes connecting to the hollow center. Roman dodecahedra date from the 2nd to 4th centuries AD and their purpose remains unknown. They rarely show signs of wear, and do not have any inscribed numbers or letters.

    • Great_Leader_Is_Dead
      ·
      1 year ago

      Or they're just decorations idk

      This is what I think but I question, why this particular design? These things were found all over the Empire, why did this particular shape become so popular in Rome? We it some kind of inside joke? Cultural reference? Meme?

    • the_itsb [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      I like to think I'm pretty creative, but I'm struggling to figure out how these could possibly benefit a sexual experience, so now I'm wondering what you owls are getting up to out there in the forest with arcane, ancient shapes.

      You don't need to tell me, I'm just saying - I strongly suspect you all are doing crazy sex magick rituals out there, and I support it. Lmk if there's anything I can do to help - bells, candles, herbs, wine, whatever.

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        The smallest ones are apparently about 1.6 inches wide, so someone could definitely fit it in a couple of orifices if they wanted to for some reason, without trauma from stretching (but probably from cuts and rubbing). With the openings, you could get some string and make a type of bead.

        I'm sorry this is really gross and I'm not even into that sort of thing, I was just think of it purely as a creative exercise and then I looked at what I wrote.