Roman Dodecahedron: History’s Mystery
It is safe to say that there are secrets to the ancient Roman civilization that even a lifetime of scrutiny will not reveal to us. Yet historians and archaeologists continue their pursuit, discovering ever so often an artifact that is at once perplexing and revealing. One such object is the Roman dodecahedron. The hollow object is a bronze enigma with a decahedral shape of twelve flat pentagonal faces. Its presence in central Europe reveals nothing of its purpose. But there are a few hypotheses that have been floated since its first discovery more than 300 years ago.
The first dodecahedron was discovered in 1739 by a local historian in Aston, Hertfordshire along the English countryside. In his report to the Society of Antiquaries, he described the object as “a piece of mixed metal, or ancient brass, consisting of 12 equal sides.” The strange discovery had all antiquarians in a fix, but there was yet more coming their way. Each subsequently discovered object was different in size and built. Most dodecahedron vary between four and 11 centimeters in size and 35 and 580 grams in weight. Each pentagonal surface contains a hole, but the sizes of these holes almost always vary—within a single dodecahedron as well as among various ones. Each of the five vertices has a globular knob. Tinier than a tennis ball, the object seems more like an interesting dice.
By 2016, 116 pieces of dodecahedra were dug up in today’s Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, Great-Britain, Hungary, Luxemburg, Netherlands, and Switzerland. The northernmost discovery was made at Hadrian’s Wall in Northern Britain. The southernmost was at Arles in France. A single sample made of silver was found in Geneva. Interestingly, no dodecahedron exists in eastern Roman empire as far as we know. Those found in the western region date back to the second, third and fourth century AD. The randomness of their locations as well as the lack of written context has perplexed historians further.