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.

  • GarbageShoot [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months 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.