Roman dodecahedron

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Roman dodecahedron from Tongeren , Gallo-Roman Museum Tongeren
Roman dodecahedron from the Roman Museum Schwarzenacker
Roman dodecahedron in the Musée gallo-romain de Fourvière , Lyon
Roman dodecahedron in the Museum Burg Linn-Krefeld.
Found in a woman's grave from the time after 341 at the Gelduba fort in Krefeld-Gellep.

As a Roman dodecahedron ( "dodecahedron") are archaeological finds dating back to the Gallo-Roman culture called. They date from the 1st to 4th centuries AD.

description

The dodecahedra are about the size of a fist, hollow and mostly made of bronze , a few are coated with silver . The twelve pentagonal outer surfaces of the regular pentagon dodecahedron each have a circular hole in the center, each hole of the otherwise symmetrical object having a different diameter. There is no fixed dimension of the holes, which vary between about 6 and 40 millimeters, and also no fixed proportions between the hole diameters.

Locations

So far, over a hundred of the artifacts have been found - exclusively in Roman settlements in areas that were previously settled by Celts . The find area stretches from England to Hungary , but most of them come from Germany and France . The discovery of a dodecahedron in Aston (England) was first mentioned in 1739 .

In Roman Museum Schwarzenacker is original and issued a large replica outdoors. A dodecahedron with eight holes of different sizes was found in Tongeren (Limburg), Belgium . It was assigned to the Gallo-Roman settlement (150-400 AD) and is exhibited in the local museum. On an example found in Geneva in 1982 , cast in lead and covered with sheet silver, one of the twelve signs of the zodiac is described in Latin on each surface .

Other locations:

Usage

Despite numerous publications and speculations, the exact purpose of the artifacts remains unknown. The Geneva find indicates for the first time an astrological-astronomical connection. Among other things, the following functions of the dodecahedron have been proposed:

  • candle holder
  • Surveying instrument
  • Pommel of a scepter
  • magical object of the Celtic religion
  • Astronomical instrument
  • Connector of metal or wooden bars
  • Knitting tool

literature

  • Bernhard A. Greiner: Roman dodecahedron. Studies on typology, production, distribution and function. In: Carnuntum Yearbook 1995 (1996) 9-44.
  • Michael Guggenberger: To determine something certain about this would be daring. 260 years of dodecahedron research. In: Publications of the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum. 80/2000, Innsbruck 2000, pp. 67-84 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Roman Dodecahedron  - collection of images, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Guggenberger: To determine something certain about this would be risky. 260 years of dodecahedron research. In: Publications of the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum. 80/2000, Innsbruck 2000, pp. 67, 71 ( digitized version )
  2. ↑ a b Michael Guggenberger: To determine something certain about this would be daring.
  3. ↑ saarland.digicult-museen.net Museums in Saarland
  4. ^ Alfons Kolling : The Roman town in Homburg-Schwarzenacker . Ed .: Foundation Roman Museum Homburg-Saarpfalz. Ermer Verlag, Homburg 1993, ISBN 3-924653-13-5 .
  5. ↑ TheMartinhallett: The Roman dodecahedron - An ancient mystery solved? May 26, 2014, accessed November 14, 2017 .