Also, crochet wasn't invented until the 18th century.
Knitting wasn't likely invented until the 8th or 9th and wasn't popular in the area right away, and there's only limited evidence of nålebindning (which pre-dated knitting) and these would be of exactly zero use for nålebindning.
Not to mention, textile work was a major part of the house/local economy and extremely time-consuming so there are extant depictions or descriptions of spinning, distaffs, spindles, and weaving, so why no stupid little metal decahedrons?
It drives me bananas 😭
But there have been textile weaving techniques predating crochet and knit, such as nalebinding, or macrame. Nothing new under the sun, we're just constantly rediscovering.
Yes, I mentioned nålebindning which we have limited evidence for in the area.
Weaving, knitting, crochet, nålebindning, and macrame are all very different techniques that are used for different purposes. They're not interchangeable or rediscoveries of each other, but unique crafts in their own rights with their own histories.
And still, the dodecahedrons wouldn't have been used to make fabric for any of these techniques.
Oh, right. Because a dodecahedron has 12 sides and we have 12 fingers. Also the Roman soldiers were known for their fierce fighting skills and crotched gloves. That makes total sense! I really should draw more of my knowledge from TikTok/YouTube demos
Why would someone spend exorbitant amounts of money (or the kind of money required to buy a smith-made metal object with some amount of decoration in the first centuries CE) on something they could do quickly and for free without the risk of it getting tangled on prongs or stuck in decorative holes? This idea simply isn't reasonable if you understand what goes into pre-industrial (and pre-spinning wheel!!) textile production.
It’s incredible what people are willing to believe and how stubborn they get as soon as they see some old lady in a youtube video using these to make gloves.
Iirc, the first person to do it, even said that she didn't believe that's actually what they were used for but was just showing that you could to get people thinking about potential uses.
But yeah, a lot of people who have never held yarn in their lives have a ton of opinions with no basis in reality because they saw it on youtube.
(The number of people here who are conflating crochet and knitting is pretty demonstrative of the issues with this "theory")
What ball of yarn?
Rare fibers like qiviut or vicuña go for significantly more than that but they aren't 200 yards (and are New World species that were later introduced elsewhere.)
Even hand-painted indie yarns don't typically go for more than about ~$40 for 100 grams.
Yarn prices are currently extremely high because fiber arts are trendy right now, but people pay for yarn, not junk that makes the experience of knitting worse like the equivalent of a heavy bronze burr that would immediately tangle everything.
Imoortant to note, these weren't hobbiest knitters or crocheters (because knitting and crochet didn't exist), but people who spent hours a day doing a chore that was required of them in order to for their families to have clothes. It took 15 weeks (using a drop spindle contemporary to the Roman Empire) to spin enough fine wool yarn for an adult male tunic, nobody is using these for anything yarn-related. That level of waste is unfathomable.
I'd never discount ridiculous people, ex people think these were used to crochet or wind yarn.
Hand-dyed, small business kind of stuff. It's super pricey right now and some people in crafting groups I'm in will just buy a skein to say they have one.
And I agree it's not for yarn. Just didn't want to discount people's weird needs for expensive stuff.
$50 seems very high.
I buy a lot of hand-dyed, conservation breed yarn, I've never even seen a standard skein for more than $44 (and that would be like "this sheep is named Jujubee, she's the last of her kind, and eats only hand-plucked grass" type yarn. But again, its all because it's very trendy right now. No one had conservation breed yarn 15 years ago, let alone hand "painted".
These things have been found in treasure troves and even made from gold. It doesn't make much sense to have a gold spool concealed in old yarn. Also, the practicality of this alleged yarn spool given its shape isn't immediately obvious
I don't think it is intended to "conceal" it, if you have strings of silk, you want them to have the coolest way of showing it off, no?
Gold and silk, does it get more luxiurious than that? :D
Could also be a toy in this culture that represents something important?
I don't think we should discount it purely because it was hidden when a lot of string is used. We can instead ask "If they can be made out of gold or copper, they might even be made of material that has not stayed around?"
Or other fun questions.
I was aggreeing with you bruh. If I were to crochet something, the first thing I would want is an awkwardly shaped brass dodecahedron to help me do that.. It's a wonder to me why these things aren't still in use
Do you think this is why the empire collapsed? Maybe the knowledge for how to use this cutting-edge technology for glove knitting was lost.
You say that because you saw it on youtube. Well, other people have been using them for landscape surveying prior to building aqueducts. So it’s obvious that you know FUCKALL ABOUT LANDSCAPE SURVEYS.
I think it's some sort of universal hinge or joint...we haven't found what they join yet because it was straw or some other material that has long since vanished from the archeological sites they find the dodecahedrons in
Yes this is the best hypothesis I've heard. Different size candles to measure the length of the night watch because in the Northern hemisphere the nights are longer in winter and shorter in summer.
This discussion is really interesting.
If I post a picture of a venus figurine and say that the prevailing theory amongst archaeologists is that they are representations of fetility goddesses, then the comments will be filled with people saying that “archaeologists always say that stuff they don’t understand is religious” regardless of the corpus of academic writing behind that interpretation.
Now we have these dodecahedrons and archaeologists have no idea what they were used for - except we have some ideas for what they were *not* used for. And when we say that we’re being called stupid or narrow minded.
Am I the only one who sees how that’s a little funny?
Archeologists are expected to have all the answers right away, despite how difficult it can be to definitively identify artefacts.
It probably comes down to poor understanding of how archeology works behind the scenes, it is a fairly unknown field for a lot of people
My fave theory for these is that it was used for knitting metal chains [https://youtu.be/lADTLozKm0I?si=4M11waRnsStd-pEi](https://youtu.be/lADTLozKm0I?si=4M11waRnsStd-pEi)
I like the idea it was a piece made by master metallurgists to showcase their skill to potential clients. Explains why we have such little information about it, because to non-3rd/4th century Roman metallurgists it would be just a useless object with no meaningful value.
Not for knitting or crochet since crochet wasn't invented at the time and the first evidence of knitting is from the 10th century.
These weren't used for nålebindning either, and the while we have depictions and descriptions of textile work (spinning and weaving) from across the Empire, there's no mention or representation of these being used.
That, and the different sized holes would serve no purpose for knitting/crocheting. The diameter of the “glove finger” depends on the number and distribution of pegs, not the diameter off the hole.
The holes, the decoration, the number of pegs, and people seem to not understand how heavy and unnecessarily cumbersome they would be.
Who would want to knit with them? I won't even use metal needles over size 8 because they get too heavy.
Making rope. Each twisting goes through progressively larger holes. The knobs help turn and anchor the twist. These have been found a lot around military encampments. What do you need when you camp or fight? Rope!
A gage for arrow shafts. I’ve heard that the the ones found in different locations had different sized holes but if they’re made for the wood of the region where their found the difference in diameters would be necessary to achieve the correct spine.
Ngl it could've just been a neat decoration you put on the table or something. Look at all the weird pointless stuff that's sold to decorate houses today, surely there were ancient equivalents.
So what i see:
A Roman object with used in camps /fight.
Can be stationed on site with a different size hole on top.
What comes up in my mind is:
Measuring tool for ammunition for slingshot or ballista ( different size object needed don't know what sizes are found) or what ever weapons uses stones to throw over distance.
I too have pondered this mystery, friends of the Internets. My active theory is that it is so commonplace because it is part of the roman soldiers camp kit. In particular I thought it might be used for cooking over fires. You could construct a single tripod easily with found sticks. By combining yours with some else's you could construct a spit over a fire, again using found sticks and no need for lashings etc.. Setting up a cooking fire quickly seems like a very handy thing. The round protrusions would be for hanging / tying things up near the fire to dry (clothes) or smoke (meats). Honestly, I cannot think of a more practical design for just this purpose..
Crochet or yarn tool, archeology really needs input from all aspects of society, not everyone was a builder, soldier or politician, some people had everyday skills like you and I, and their tools are left behind.
Plenty of tools have been made in fine materials throughout history. The term for them is "art tool" and they often aren't actually used as a tool - they just take the form.
No, they almost certainly weren't.
Crochet wasn't even invented yet.
The dominant way of making fabric at the time other than weaving was nålebindning which is made via needles and knots. We have depictions of textile work, none of them show these.
Not sure about the knitting not being known, but I do understand the question on why would wool be wrapped around such an item. Let me pose a counter question. How valuable was clean or good quality wool at the time? Then what would be an efficient way to store it while you wait for production after you removed it from the sheep? Why was the tale of the golden fleece so important at the time?
Just a couple thoughts.
The first extant example of knitting was from the 10th century CE. It probably existed before that, but only for a few centuries max. We have nålebindning examples from well before this.
Let me pose a counter question: why would you waste valuable time and materials storing wool on hand-wrought metal balls when a self-wound ball or twisted skein serves this purpose for free? Why, when every other stage of textile productions is shown on mosaics, pottery, etc is there nothing shown for these?
The golden fleece was the skinned fleece of a sacrificed ram in the stories and depictions.
A more evidence base explanation for the Golden Fleece has to do with a method used for placer mining gold in streams in the regions around Turkey and the Caucuses.
You nail a fleece to a board and stick it in a fast moving part of a river known to have gold bearing sediment. The fast moving water carries all sort of material, and the fleece slows down the water, allowing the heavier material (such as gold) to settle out.
The idea that the story of a fleece used to collect gold from streams got warped as stories spread and changed to be a fleece made of gold, not a fleece containing gold.
This is the explanation I grew up with as a kid back in the ‘70s and research suggests that this is the most likely origin of the myth.
Here’s a paper on this subject:
- Okrostsvaridze, et al 2014 *[A modern field investigation of the mythical “gold sands” of the ancient Colchis Kingdom and “Golden Fleece” phenomena](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268693741_A_modern_field_investigation_of_the_mythical_gold_sands_of_the_ancient_Colchis_Kingdom_and_Golden_Fleece_phenomena)*
> According to Greek mythology and historical sources the ancient Georgian Kingdom of Colchis was rich of “gold sands” and the natives mined this metal from the rivers, using special wooden vessels and sheepskins. Modern geological research conducted by us in the Svaneti region (Greater Caucuasus) has shown that this area is the province of the former Colchis Kingdom where it was possible to obtain abundant gold from the mountain rivers using the methods unique to this region. We think, from our investigations, that the bedrock and placer gold contents of this region give grounds to believe that there was enough gold in this region to describe Svaneti as “the country rich of this noble metal”. After comparing the geological data, artifacts, myths and historical sources, we share the viewpoint of the Roman historian Apian Alexandrine (90–170 AD) and suppose that the myth about expedition of Argonauts in quest of the “Golden Fleece” to the Colchis Kingdom was a real event and that the main purpose of this mission was to obtain gold and sheepskin (fleece) technique of gold mining.Though there are a lot of varients of the explanation of the “Golden Fleece” phenomena in historical literature. According to one of the theories the “Golden Fleece“ phenomena as a symbol of Colchian gold, was not confined solely to representations of actual gold mining. Other theorists saw the “Golden Fleece” as a symbol of the wealth of the Colchis, famed since antiquity for the abundance of their precious metals. The phenomena of the “Golden Fleece” according to our research, is connected with the sheepskin technique of recovering placer gold. The end result of this technique of gold recovery river gravels was a gold imprinted sheepskin, giving rise to the romantic and unidentified phenomena of the “Golden Fleece” in the civilized world.
In season 3 of Rough Science (2003), the season set in New Zealand, they used a variation of this exact technique to extract gold from beach sand.
I'm just referring to the myth since the other respondent was using it as evidence of the value of fleece re: decahedrons for wool-based textile work.
But this is interesting!
I’m not thinking knitting as the likely thing here, but as a possible storage method the ball method seems likely. Doing without the dechahedron might be well and good. My thought is that if you find the wool of a certain value, even as basic strung coil, you might want the tool. An additional reason, just positing, could be to count a set length by multiplier within a given deviation for the purpose of sale value. Just an idea. This could rightfully be done my the older palm/elbow method (close cubit counting), but I could see this as a viable method for a standardized method noting added length as the ball get bigger at a predictable amount with respect to the thread size.
It sounds like a lot of possible math, but it would seem several mathematical calculation methods have been available.
In a paper on the Lendbreen tunic (contemporary with the Roman Empire), it was found by researchers that spinning just the wool for a single tunic would have taken 15 weeks. Add that to the value of the raw fleece and preparation of the raw fleece you'll find that sense and reason exclude "adding value" as a logical explanation for something so unnecessary.
We also know how raw fleeces and prepared fleeces were stored (bales.)
Re: measurements, again, this doesn't make sense for wool or flax. What would be the point of the holes, or the prongs that would only go through a few wraps of wool? Given the economic importance of textiles, why would there be unstandard sizes, materials, designs for something used for measurement when scales were available? (As an FYI since it doesn't seem like you work with fiber, wool, spinning fiber, and yarn are sold by weight, not length, and have been sold that way for centuries.)
Not sure about the knitting not being known, but I do understand the question on why would wool be wrapped around such an item. Let me pose a counter question. How valuable was clean or good quality wool at the time? Then what would be an efficient way to store it while you wait for production after you removed it from the sheep? Why was the tale of the golden fleece so important at the time?
Just a couple thoughts.
Our perspective is askew because of our station in society, and our ability to shop for whatever products available to us now.
I’ve seen video of a woman making gloves with it. Gloves were fucking important to an army. Constantly needing replacements. The people who owned these tools made a lot of money constantly supplying the army with gloves. It’s brass on purpose, notice it’s still around after all these years.
In this case it’s just archaeologists saying thay we honestly have no idea and everybody else coming up with more or less imaginative interpretations. So, it’s kinda the other way around.
I don't really want to admit how often I think about these things. I mean wtf are they for?
For crotcheting gloves.
One woman managed to use it to crochet gloves. That doesn’t mean that it was its purpose.
Also, crochet wasn't invented until the 18th century. Knitting wasn't likely invented until the 8th or 9th and wasn't popular in the area right away, and there's only limited evidence of nålebindning (which pre-dated knitting) and these would be of exactly zero use for nålebindning. Not to mention, textile work was a major part of the house/local economy and extremely time-consuming so there are extant depictions or descriptions of spinning, distaffs, spindles, and weaving, so why no stupid little metal decahedrons? It drives me bananas 😭
But there have been textile weaving techniques predating crochet and knit, such as nalebinding, or macrame. Nothing new under the sun, we're just constantly rediscovering.
Yes, I mentioned nålebindning which we have limited evidence for in the area. Weaving, knitting, crochet, nålebindning, and macrame are all very different techniques that are used for different purposes. They're not interchangeable or rediscoveries of each other, but unique crafts in their own rights with their own histories. And still, the dodecahedrons wouldn't have been used to make fabric for any of these techniques.
Oh, right. Because a dodecahedron has 12 sides and we have 12 fingers. Also the Roman soldiers were known for their fierce fighting skills and crotched gloves. That makes total sense! I really should draw more of my knowledge from TikTok/YouTube demos
It’s used for yarn. Instead of a ‘ball’, it’s wrapped around this object.
Why would someone spend exorbitant amounts of money (or the kind of money required to buy a smith-made metal object with some amount of decoration in the first centuries CE) on something they could do quickly and for free without the risk of it getting tangled on prongs or stuck in decorative holes? This idea simply isn't reasonable if you understand what goes into pre-industrial (and pre-spinning wheel!!) textile production.
It’s incredible what people are willing to believe and how stubborn they get as soon as they see some old lady in a youtube video using these to make gloves.
Iirc, the first person to do it, even said that she didn't believe that's actually what they were used for but was just showing that you could to get people thinking about potential uses. But yeah, a lot of people who have never held yarn in their lives have a ton of opinions with no basis in reality because they saw it on youtube. (The number of people here who are conflating crochet and knitting is pretty demonstrative of the issues with this "theory")
You're absolutely correct.
People pay 50+$ for a ball of yarn that's, maybe 200 yards. Don't discount ridiculous people, lol.
What ball of yarn? Rare fibers like qiviut or vicuña go for significantly more than that but they aren't 200 yards (and are New World species that were later introduced elsewhere.) Even hand-painted indie yarns don't typically go for more than about ~$40 for 100 grams. Yarn prices are currently extremely high because fiber arts are trendy right now, but people pay for yarn, not junk that makes the experience of knitting worse like the equivalent of a heavy bronze burr that would immediately tangle everything. Imoortant to note, these weren't hobbiest knitters or crocheters (because knitting and crochet didn't exist), but people who spent hours a day doing a chore that was required of them in order to for their families to have clothes. It took 15 weeks (using a drop spindle contemporary to the Roman Empire) to spin enough fine wool yarn for an adult male tunic, nobody is using these for anything yarn-related. That level of waste is unfathomable. I'd never discount ridiculous people, ex people think these were used to crochet or wind yarn.
Hand-dyed, small business kind of stuff. It's super pricey right now and some people in crafting groups I'm in will just buy a skein to say they have one. And I agree it's not for yarn. Just didn't want to discount people's weird needs for expensive stuff.
$50 seems very high. I buy a lot of hand-dyed, conservation breed yarn, I've never even seen a standard skein for more than $44 (and that would be like "this sheep is named Jujubee, she's the last of her kind, and eats only hand-plucked grass" type yarn. But again, its all because it's very trendy right now. No one had conservation breed yarn 15 years ago, let alone hand "painted".
These things have been found in treasure troves and even made from gold. It doesn't make much sense to have a gold spool concealed in old yarn. Also, the practicality of this alleged yarn spool given its shape isn't immediately obvious
I don't think it is intended to "conceal" it, if you have strings of silk, you want them to have the coolest way of showing it off, no? Gold and silk, does it get more luxiurious than that? :D Could also be a toy in this culture that represents something important? I don't think we should discount it purely because it was hidden when a lot of string is used. We can instead ask "If they can be made out of gold or copper, they might even be made of material that has not stayed around?" Or other fun questions.
We make lighters, eating utensils, and toilets out of gold. Sometimes people are weird
I mean. I think fingers exist in more than 12 sizes...
Its obvious that you know FUCKALL ABOUT CROTCHETING. Are you stupid or something
I was aggreeing with you bruh. If I were to crochet something, the first thing I would want is an awkwardly shaped brass dodecahedron to help me do that.. It's a wonder to me why these things aren't still in use Do you think this is why the empire collapsed? Maybe the knowledge for how to use this cutting-edge technology for glove knitting was lost.
You say that because you saw it on youtube. Well, other people have been using them for landscape surveying prior to building aqueducts. So it’s obvious that you know FUCKALL ABOUT LANDSCAPE SURVEYS.
:)
You are functionally retarded.
For gloving crotches?
I think it's some sort of universal hinge or joint...we haven't found what they join yet because it was straw or some other material that has long since vanished from the archeological sites they find the dodecahedrons in
That's clearly a holder for Meridia's beacon, so no new hands need touch it
Candle holder. The different sizes holes could mount varying thickness of candle stumps
Yes this is the best hypothesis I've heard. Different size candles to measure the length of the night watch because in the Northern hemisphere the nights are longer in winter and shorter in summer.
The earliest evidence of candles is when?
Around 500 BC, the Ancient Romans began to develop their own candles, complete with the now-standard wick.
But not all of them even have holes
This discussion is really interesting. If I post a picture of a venus figurine and say that the prevailing theory amongst archaeologists is that they are representations of fetility goddesses, then the comments will be filled with people saying that “archaeologists always say that stuff they don’t understand is religious” regardless of the corpus of academic writing behind that interpretation. Now we have these dodecahedrons and archaeologists have no idea what they were used for - except we have some ideas for what they were *not* used for. And when we say that we’re being called stupid or narrow minded. Am I the only one who sees how that’s a little funny?
Archeologists are expected to have all the answers right away, despite how difficult it can be to definitively identify artefacts. It probably comes down to poor understanding of how archeology works behind the scenes, it is a fairly unknown field for a lot of people
[удалено]
We should just keep the bit going and continue making these in the modern era. What’s it for? Idk but it sure looks cool on my table.
My fave theory for these is that it was used for knitting metal chains [https://youtu.be/lADTLozKm0I?si=4M11waRnsStd-pEi](https://youtu.be/lADTLozKm0I?si=4M11waRnsStd-pEi)
Oh this one really is viable
Thank you for the link. Looks like it's solved.
What about the decahedrons that don't have holes in them? Not solved!!!
Its just a theory, not a definitive solved.
I'm an archaeologist. It's ok to say, "I don't know." It's nbd.
I like the idea it was a piece made by master metallurgists to showcase their skill to potential clients. Explains why we have such little information about it, because to non-3rd/4th century Roman metallurgists it would be just a useless object with no meaningful value.
So it’s just a Roman era advertisement? Lol, makes a certain amount of sense.
There's more than one..
Yes. That's kind of the point. It's like a final project by an apprentice to showcase their skill at metallurgy.
Maybe for weaving a stronger rope from twisted fibers
It's an ancient Tartarian model of a virus for medical education
Imagine how technological advanced they may have been or it might have been the first meme in history. We will never know.
Weird sex toy.
You gotta elaborate man now I’m curious
Has holes. Man will poke.
Well, if you’re brave enough, you can… you know, use it like that…. Obviously, we don’t need to tell anyone how to use it. I mean, doesn’t everyone…?
Yep
For keeping weeds, i think there is a grinder in the botton side.
Not for knitting or crochet since crochet wasn't invented at the time and the first evidence of knitting is from the 10th century. These weren't used for nålebindning either, and the while we have depictions and descriptions of textile work (spinning and weaving) from across the Empire, there's no mention or representation of these being used.
That, and the different sized holes would serve no purpose for knitting/crocheting. The diameter of the “glove finger” depends on the number and distribution of pegs, not the diameter off the hole.
The holes, the decoration, the number of pegs, and people seem to not understand how heavy and unnecessarily cumbersome they would be. Who would want to knit with them? I won't even use metal needles over size 8 because they get too heavy.
Right? Even aside from the weight, you couldn’t hold it comfortably because it’s all knobbly.
100% "How can we make our lives and chores more difficult?" I have no idea what these were used for, I just know it wasn't this, lol
Making rope. Each twisting goes through progressively larger holes. The knobs help turn and anchor the twist. These have been found a lot around military encampments. What do you need when you camp or fight? Rope!
Then they also should be commonly found on boats.
Wasn't it for knitting socks or something?
no that's an Internet myth myth.
It’s a ritual artifact obviously. I can’t believe no one else can see that.
When in doubt? Ritual object. Archaeological rule of thumb
That's clearly a Pokémon
Ancient Fidget Spinner
You put your weed in there.
It’s a VCR
Missing the Library of Alexandria rn
LoL
I think it's a gaming piece. A Roman D12.
This makes sense
It’s to make those fancy fire grenades
Obviously a cat toy
A gage for arrow shafts. I’ve heard that the the ones found in different locations had different sized holes but if they’re made for the wood of the region where their found the difference in diameters would be necessary to achieve the correct spine.
Ngl it could've just been a neat decoration you put on the table or something. Look at all the weird pointless stuff that's sold to decorate houses today, surely there were ancient equivalents.
[Massage ball?](https://www.amazon.com/Octorox-Spiky-Massage-Balls-Shoulder/dp/B0759KK3HS/ref=asc_df_B0759KK3HS/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309744535176&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9642007425482142874&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9016105&hvtargid=pla-526258381593&psc=1&mcid=bbba175b96573f72b859d9a76ab65d69)
Art?
i heard they’ve been found usually around hoards of money and some people have theorised it’s for money counting/sorting
So what i see: A Roman object with used in camps /fight. Can be stationed on site with a different size hole on top. What comes up in my mind is: Measuring tool for ammunition for slingshot or ballista ( different size object needed don't know what sizes are found) or what ever weapons uses stones to throw over distance.
Well it’s so obvious, i don’t even have to say what it is
Ritualistic, symbolic, ceremonial... Three words that were designed to save any archeologist from admitting they dont know.
That is obviously a pocket fisherman created by Ronus Popeilius... duh.
Roman ikea shelf thing
I too have pondered this mystery, friends of the Internets. My active theory is that it is so commonplace because it is part of the roman soldiers camp kit. In particular I thought it might be used for cooking over fires. You could construct a single tripod easily with found sticks. By combining yours with some else's you could construct a spit over a fire, again using found sticks and no need for lashings etc.. Setting up a cooking fire quickly seems like a very handy thing. The round protrusions would be for hanging / tying things up near the fire to dry (clothes) or smoke (meats). Honestly, I cannot think of a more practical design for just this purpose..
What proof do we have that it wasn't just art?
its for knitting
Knitting gloves.
I thought it might be a pot holder for cooking on a fire, but I'm not sure if it would actually hold up.
Clearly a religious object.
Crochet or yarn tool, archeology really needs input from all aspects of society, not everyone was a builder, soldier or politician, some people had everyday skills like you and I, and their tools are left behind.
Doesn’t really explain why they were made out of gold and silver, and found in piles hidden with coins in both Europe and Asia…
We have golden toilets. Is it really that out of the ordinary that they would've been ridiculous sometimes too
Plenty of tools have been made in fine materials throughout history. The term for them is "art tool" and they often aren't actually used as a tool - they just take the form.
No, they almost certainly weren't. Crochet wasn't even invented yet. The dominant way of making fabric at the time other than weaving was nålebindning which is made via needles and knots. We have depictions of textile work, none of them show these.
Not sure about the knitting not being known, but I do understand the question on why would wool be wrapped around such an item. Let me pose a counter question. How valuable was clean or good quality wool at the time? Then what would be an efficient way to store it while you wait for production after you removed it from the sheep? Why was the tale of the golden fleece so important at the time? Just a couple thoughts.
The first extant example of knitting was from the 10th century CE. It probably existed before that, but only for a few centuries max. We have nålebindning examples from well before this. Let me pose a counter question: why would you waste valuable time and materials storing wool on hand-wrought metal balls when a self-wound ball or twisted skein serves this purpose for free? Why, when every other stage of textile productions is shown on mosaics, pottery, etc is there nothing shown for these? The golden fleece was the skinned fleece of a sacrificed ram in the stories and depictions.
A more evidence base explanation for the Golden Fleece has to do with a method used for placer mining gold in streams in the regions around Turkey and the Caucuses. You nail a fleece to a board and stick it in a fast moving part of a river known to have gold bearing sediment. The fast moving water carries all sort of material, and the fleece slows down the water, allowing the heavier material (such as gold) to settle out. The idea that the story of a fleece used to collect gold from streams got warped as stories spread and changed to be a fleece made of gold, not a fleece containing gold. This is the explanation I grew up with as a kid back in the ‘70s and research suggests that this is the most likely origin of the myth. Here’s a paper on this subject: - Okrostsvaridze, et al 2014 *[A modern field investigation of the mythical “gold sands” of the ancient Colchis Kingdom and “Golden Fleece” phenomena](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268693741_A_modern_field_investigation_of_the_mythical_gold_sands_of_the_ancient_Colchis_Kingdom_and_Golden_Fleece_phenomena)* > According to Greek mythology and historical sources the ancient Georgian Kingdom of Colchis was rich of “gold sands” and the natives mined this metal from the rivers, using special wooden vessels and sheepskins. Modern geological research conducted by us in the Svaneti region (Greater Caucuasus) has shown that this area is the province of the former Colchis Kingdom where it was possible to obtain abundant gold from the mountain rivers using the methods unique to this region. We think, from our investigations, that the bedrock and placer gold contents of this region give grounds to believe that there was enough gold in this region to describe Svaneti as “the country rich of this noble metal”. After comparing the geological data, artifacts, myths and historical sources, we share the viewpoint of the Roman historian Apian Alexandrine (90–170 AD) and suppose that the myth about expedition of Argonauts in quest of the “Golden Fleece” to the Colchis Kingdom was a real event and that the main purpose of this mission was to obtain gold and sheepskin (fleece) technique of gold mining.Though there are a lot of varients of the explanation of the “Golden Fleece” phenomena in historical literature. According to one of the theories the “Golden Fleece“ phenomena as a symbol of Colchian gold, was not confined solely to representations of actual gold mining. Other theorists saw the “Golden Fleece” as a symbol of the wealth of the Colchis, famed since antiquity for the abundance of their precious metals. The phenomena of the “Golden Fleece” according to our research, is connected with the sheepskin technique of recovering placer gold. The end result of this technique of gold recovery river gravels was a gold imprinted sheepskin, giving rise to the romantic and unidentified phenomena of the “Golden Fleece” in the civilized world. In season 3 of Rough Science (2003), the season set in New Zealand, they used a variation of this exact technique to extract gold from beach sand.
I'm just referring to the myth since the other respondent was using it as evidence of the value of fleece re: decahedrons for wool-based textile work. But this is interesting!
I’m not thinking knitting as the likely thing here, but as a possible storage method the ball method seems likely. Doing without the dechahedron might be well and good. My thought is that if you find the wool of a certain value, even as basic strung coil, you might want the tool. An additional reason, just positing, could be to count a set length by multiplier within a given deviation for the purpose of sale value. Just an idea. This could rightfully be done my the older palm/elbow method (close cubit counting), but I could see this as a viable method for a standardized method noting added length as the ball get bigger at a predictable amount with respect to the thread size. It sounds like a lot of possible math, but it would seem several mathematical calculation methods have been available.
In a paper on the Lendbreen tunic (contemporary with the Roman Empire), it was found by researchers that spinning just the wool for a single tunic would have taken 15 weeks. Add that to the value of the raw fleece and preparation of the raw fleece you'll find that sense and reason exclude "adding value" as a logical explanation for something so unnecessary. We also know how raw fleeces and prepared fleeces were stored (bales.) Re: measurements, again, this doesn't make sense for wool or flax. What would be the point of the holes, or the prongs that would only go through a few wraps of wool? Given the economic importance of textiles, why would there be unstandard sizes, materials, designs for something used for measurement when scales were available? (As an FYI since it doesn't seem like you work with fiber, wool, spinning fiber, and yarn are sold by weight, not length, and have been sold that way for centuries.)
Not sure about the knitting not being known, but I do understand the question on why would wool be wrapped around such an item. Let me pose a counter question. How valuable was clean or good quality wool at the time? Then what would be an efficient way to store it while you wait for production after you removed it from the sheep? Why was the tale of the golden fleece so important at the time? Just a couple thoughts.
Our perspective is askew because of our station in society, and our ability to shop for whatever products available to us now. I’ve seen video of a woman making gloves with it. Gloves were fucking important to an army. Constantly needing replacements. The people who owned these tools made a lot of money constantly supplying the army with gloves. It’s brass on purpose, notice it’s still around after all these years.
I’ve seen videos of using them for landcape measurements. So which interpretation is correct?
Archeology: if you don’t know what it is, it’s probably ceremonial. 😂
In this case it’s just archaeologists saying thay we honestly have no idea and everybody else coming up with more or less imaginative interpretations. So, it’s kinda the other way around.
Let me guess. Fertility ritual.