What were these Roman objects used for? | Hacker News Reader

What were these Roman objects used for?

celticnz.co.nz

52 pointsjd11537 comments

Knitting glove fingers: https://youtu.be/76AvV601yJ0

You are probably right, which is a bit disappointing in this case.

The article goes into the measurements a lot, like the relation to inches. I thought inches were derived from fingers, like the thickness of a thumb. Just like a foot is derived from, you know; feet

your's is a better fit. but i felt instantly reminded of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jC6sKnq_sE

Lol, I love jumping to conclusions but this is kind of obvious: https://www.favecrafts.com/Techniques/How-to-Knit-Wire-on-a-...

This video shows it used after more practice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amLeEmU6I-M&list=PLrcUrvayab...

Perhaps not gloves.... https://shoeboxstudio.com/2014/08/24/make-a-wire-knitting-sp...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_knitting:

“The oldest knitted artifacts are socks from Egypt, dating from the 11th century CE. They are a very fine gauge, done with complex colourwork and some have a short row heel, which necessitates the purl stitch. These complexities suggest that knitting is even older than the archeological record can prove.”

https://knitty.com/ISSUEspring06/FEAThistory101.html:

“Linguistically, all evidence implies that knitting is a fairly recent invention. There are no ancient legends of knitting like there are legends of spinning and weaving (remember Arachne? Ixzaluoh? Nephthys? Amaterasu? Never mind... the numbers of weaving and spinning gods and mostly goddesses are legion). There are no ancient gods or goddesses who knit, no legend of how it was invented or given by the gods. That lack implies that it is a recent skill, developed after mythologies were established around the world. […] So what do we know? Knitting kind of appeared, poof, probably in Egypt or an adjoining land, sometime around 1000CE”

⇒ it’s not a given that knitting existed in Roman times.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron dates them to the 2nd to 4th centuries AD)

Seems more reasonable than the article! But aren't there simpler methods for this? Iron tools were a big time and money investment right?

I'm not convinced by this, because the object is more complicated and finely made than necessary for making glove fingers. Why a dodecahedron when only one face is used? Why are the holes so smooth and round, which would require extra hand filing to clean up the casting? Why multiple sizes of hole when the size of the glove finger is regulated by the yarn tension?

There's 5 holes each that match right and left hands (hole sizes align with finger sizes).

I wonder if the hole sizes are related to less durable (wooden?) objects used for stretching the fingers differently.

probably not; we can’t date knitting that early, and by a wide margin. The earliest knit goods are ~1000CE and Egyptian.

The time period for these finds are ~>800 years earlier.

Naalbinding existed then, and works fine for fingers with its regular tools, and is actually very different from knitting in its technique.

I’m not convinced. I’m more concerned with the honest qualification of uncertainty in claims made about artifacts, though. The language of speculation and likelihood is a lot more intellectually honest than either the “ivory tower knows all” crowd OR the “folk wisdom knows all” gang’s respective positions.

fwiw i’m also immediately suspicious whenever druids are invoked with any certainty: we know so shockingly little about them at all that the confidence interval on anything to do with them is super wide.

This article does not belong on HN. It has all the hallmarks of crankery: An early rejection of the entire field of study involved; describes peer review as a tyranny of orthodoxy; Makes assumption that everyone else who has studied this missed something as fundamental as unit conversions; and then engages in a lot of gymnastics and assumptions to justify a pre-decided conclusion.

I think HN will do fine. Have a look around: people are already discussing knitting instead of the content of the article after someone dug out a video that shows a similiar object being used.

Just because the article is wrong does not mean that it cannot serve as starting point for interesting discussions.

> I think HN will do fine. Have a look around: people are already discussing knitting instead of the content of the article after someone dug out a video that shows a similiar object being used.

Not "a similar object", that would imply an independent item which happens to share visible features. The video is a modern 3D printed replica of these..

Technically true but it does not really matter for what my comment was meant to say. This is the second time in two days that someone concentrated on details that were not relevant to the idea presented in the comment. Maybe I should think better about the examples I use and what to include or not include in my comments.

It is indeed a bit unhinged. It seems they just measured the diameter of the holes and then formed a series of integer multiples of these measurements. And some of these multiples happen to coincide with numbers used in specific settings (navigation, astronomy...). How surprising... They fail to explain how those objects would be used in practice according to their theory without modern highly accurate calipers.

Not even speaking of the general tone and wild ramblings scattered throughout the article.

Edit: The number series are not even correct. For the first series (.875, 1.75, 2.265, 3.5, 4.375, ...) the third number should be 2.625 and not 2.265. It is even bolded.

The problem with the measurement device theory is the dodecahedrons found don't seem to be consistent.

Speculated uses include as a candlestick holder (wax was found inside two examples); dice; survey instruments for estimating distances to (or sizes of) distant objects;[4] devices for determining the optimal sowing date for winter grain;[5] gauges to calibrate water pipes, army standard bases, a coin measuring device for counterfeit detection. Use as a measuring instrument of any kind seems improbable since the dodecahedra were not standardized and come in many sizes and arrangements of their openings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron

The guy is posting on (or owns) celticnz.co.nz - proponents of a somewhat racist theory that the Maori weren't the original inhabitants of New Zealand, but rather it was previously settled by Celts a thousand years earlier.

The evidence for this consists mostly of some rocks piled up to make some fences - technology the Maori couldn't hope to replicate until the white man came along and showed them how.

This apparently means, amongst other things, that the Treaty of Waitangi (founding document for NZ) is null and void as the Maori are not the original/actual Tangata whenua.

> The progression increases to generate values like 66, 660, 5280 7920, all values that form the "11" navigational system with a mile of 5280'.

Flawed premise: the modern mile being 5280' is more or less an historical accident. The Roman mile was 5000 Roman feet.

https://petersmagnusson.org/2009/09/15/why-are-there-5280-fe...

For his 3rd measurement he’s claiming a number with 1/1000000ths of an inch accuracy. Which is the same fabrication standard we use in modern CPUs.

> Which is the same fabrication standard we use in modern CPUs.

Though your point is fair, it's 25nm so rather more like the fab' standard of 10 years ago, 24nm flash started shipping in 2010.

Also from TFA:

> The Romans had a foot of 11.664"*. Their pace measurement was 5 Roman feet or 58.32" (4.86'). Their mile was 5000 Roman feet, which would be equivalent to 4860 ancient or modern English feet. The Roman measurements were divisible by 6.

> The ancient English had a foot of 12", a yard of 3', a fathom that was originally 5.5', a rod or perch that was 16.5' (3 fathoms), a chain of 66', a furlong or furrowlong that was 660', a mile of 5280' and a league that was 16500' (3.125 miles). The English overland measurements were divisible by the number 11, as were the ancient Scottish measurements, with their mile of 5940' (1 furlong greater than the English mile).

Some kind of fixture for positioning joists in some sort of field tent construction?

- ed wee knobs could be for insertion into canvas or hides, which are they tightly bound outside?

This was my first thought as well, the theory is also mentioned in the article (the small round mushroom-shaped knobs were possibly used to hold the tent cover in place).

I think I have seen similar standardized joints in modern constructions.

E: here is a modern day version, just google for "MERO system":

https://www.mero.de/index.php/en/construction-systems/nodes/...

Oh, it does? I sorta skimmed thorugh and zoned out when it started getting intimate with number sequences, so did a quick search for 'tent' and 'construction' and didn't find anything.

RTFA, detritus!

According to the anthropologist meme, the answer is always "votive objects".

There’s a popular screen grab from Tumblr about these objects—that they’re used to knit gloves: https://i.redd.it/zy8mdzycmqo51.png

So he is basing these super specific conclusions on the measurements of a single dodehycron? This is just silly number theory and can easily be proven or disproven by measuring and weighing another. If one hole is not elliptical then the argument doesn't hold.

I know nothing of this subject, but have to say that I like the idea of druids walking around with the reference objects for size and weight. Does anyone know how uniform they are?

> This is just silly number theory

I think you mean 'numerology' - 'number theory' is a serious field of mathematics; the former is the 'study' of numbers particularly in old texts (e.g. the Bible) etc. and finding mystical meanings or links between them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_theory

(Actually they already have 'not to be confused with' links between them - must be a common confusion.)

You are right!

In the civilization that existed before the cataclysm that marked the end of the Younger Dryras, these were the equivalent of Turners Cubes. These were passed down by the remnants of that civilization, along with stories of the flood.

Here's a nice relaxing video of someone making a turners cube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw3GzqgWg-8

I’ve seen these featured on out—of-place artifacts articles over the years. Many have assumed various functions such as flag pole holders or measuring tools, but they seem too decorative for such pragmatic uses.

Knots/weaving

Path of Exile resonators, they're used with fossils to perform more specific upgrades to items.

Parent comment is talking about this:

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Delve_Stackable_Socketable...

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/List_of_fossils

There is a number of items in Path of Exile that at least draws inspiration from real life objects.

"Taste of Hate":

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Taste_of_Hate

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/6pldcz/taste_o...

https://imgur.com/a/UI4iM

"Dying Sun":

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Dying_Sun

https://www.johnniewalker.com/media/1633/01-john-walker-and-...

Related: "Kitava" - "The inhabitants of this island and their diet and lifestyle have been the subject of study [...], due to their reported excellent health and traditional diet.", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitava

I appreciate how the author signalled to us the nature of the article early on with a bizarre reference to 'cultural marxism'

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