May
04
/ 2025
One of the most enigmatic and unusual type of artifact to be recovered from ancient times, the Roman dodecahedron is a small, hollow object made of bronze or (more rarely) stone, with a geometrical shape that has 12 flat faces. Each face is a pentagon (a five-sided figure), embellished with a series of knobs on each corner point of the pentagons, and the pentagon faces in most cases contain circular holes as well. The first of these enigmatic objects was unearthed in 1739, in a field in the English countryside alongside a collection of ancient Roman coins. It was presented to the Society of Antiquaries in London in that year, and no one had any idea about what it represented
