When in Rome...

[Zander]

That is just too cool!

It must be mine!!!!

Too bad I don't have $4,000 - $6,000 to spend to get it.

You can spend $6,000 on it or you could spend a small fraction of the price and get a quality reproduction of a similar die plus a rhomboid d12 plus 2d6 at Ancient Egyptian d20, d12 and 2d6. So it can be yours, in a way.

 

[Zander]

"Several polyhedra in various materials with similar symbols are known from the Roman period. Modern scholarship has not yet established the game for which these dice were used."

Oh, I think we know...

Very funny but I suspect not...

Was it for divination? Probably not; if it were it wouldn't be marked 1 to 20. More likely, it would have symbols.

Was it for a family board game or proto-D&D? Again, no; it's too big for that.

More likely, it's for a gambling game. It has to be big, so that everyone standing around can see what has been rolled. The one being auctioned on Ebay is also quite large at 1.5 inches across.

 

[HellHound]

As I had posted to one of the other four threads on this topic:



That is a sweet piece of glass.

I'd love a few more photos of it, just for the chance to be able to make replicas... hire Koplow or another die company to make a few hundred and use them for the upcoming FVLMINATA d20. The original FVLMINATA had cool roman numeral d8s that I think Koplow made (maybe Chessex?)... these would be the cat's meow for the d20 version.

 

[tarchon]

Very funny but I suspect not...

Was it for divination? Probably not; if it were it wouldn't be marked 1 to 20. More likely, it would have symbols.

Was it for a family board game or proto-D&D? Again, no; it's too big for that.

More likely, it's for a gambling game. It has to be big, so that everyone standing around can see what has been rolled. The one being auctioned on Ebay is also quite large at 1.5 inches across.

I don't think it could be 1-20 - one side looks like it has a rho, which would be 100, plus 11-19 are all written with two letters, and I don't see any two-letter sides. Divination would be my bet.

 

[pogre]

I don't think it could be 1-20 - one side looks like it has a rho, which would be 100, plus 11-19 are all written with two letters, and I don't see any two-letter sides. Divination would be my bet.

The Greeks used their letters for numbers. Greek was a commonly used language in the Roman empire. It's possible they are numbers. Hard to know without seeing more, eh?

 

[tarchon]

The Greeks used their letters for numbers. Greek was a commonly used language in the Roman empire. It's possible they are numbers. Hard to know without seeing more, eh?

Another photo I saw distinctly has a qoppa, and, like stigma/digamma, that only occurs as a numeral after the very early Classical, so they must be numbers. Presumably, the numbers are 1-10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100, and one other (200?). Interesting that it has a 9 (theta), which was regarded as extremely unlucky.
Yeah, by this time, Greek numerals were used throughout the empire, and could be considered to be the conventional number system. The much clumsier Roman system only persisted in a few fixed contexts.

 

[Henry]

Since there are numerous multiple threads on this topic, I'm going to go ahead and close this one, and post the link to the largest one...


http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=70501

happy discussion, all!