Another, similar icosahedron dating from the 1st-3rd century CE, also made of rock crystal, has numerical markings on each side. There are only two markings on it: “X” and, on a different panel, “I”. An interesting example is the icosahedral cube, carefully worked out in mountain crystal, dating from the 1st-2nd century CE. It seems that such performances could be erotic or humorous, further diversifying the gameplay for players.Īmong the more interesting dice specimens, it is also worth mentioning bones with more than six faces. Scoring on this type of bones was placed in different places on the figure: on the hairstyle or on the back, on the breasts, on the outer surfaces of the arms, on the thighs and on the buttocks. There are objects of this type made of metal, mainly bronze, as well as animal bones, and at least one specimen from Italy, dated around the 2nd century CE. Some bones have been given more complex forms, such as a naked, crouching human figure, mostly female. It is difficult to say whether they were thrown like traditional dice – judging by their appearance, they usually had to fall on at most two levels. An example are two small, bone objects formed into “cushion” polyhedrons marked with eyelets, dated around the 1st-2nd century BCE. There are mysterious pieces among Roman dice. by sawing them up or filling the meshes on a certain wall with lead. It happened, of course, that the bones were attempted to be forged, e.g. This often had an impact on the course of the game. It is worth noting at this point that in antiquity, dice were not standardized yet and not so much attention was paid to whether each side is perfectly even. Some tesserae were in the form of elongated cuboids, others were more or less regular cubes. bronze, lead or stone, and single specimens were even made of semi-precious stones and amber. They were most often made of animal bones or antlers, although among the finds there are also bones made of other materials, e.g. Polygonal dice with mesh numbers marked on their faces were referred to in ancient Rome as tesserae (singular: tessera). In order to balance the astragalus more favorably, it was also possible to load one of the walls by drilling it and filling the hole with metal. Archaeological finds include decks with traces of deliberately sawing or rubbing some of the sides – some players apparently wanted to increase their chances of rolling a certain number of points this way. It was rare for astragales to fall down on the smallest sides, and players were obviously aware of it. Throwing some combinations was easier than others, e.g. For the purposes of the game, each of these surfaces was scored in a specific way, while the points on the opposite sides of the astragalus usually had to add up to a seven: so 6 and 1, 4 and 3, 5 and 2. In the Mediterranean region, archaeologists find them at sites dating back to the Early Stone Age, although it is not known whether they were already used for games or had a functional or symbolic meaning.Īstragals are small animal metatarsal bones – sheep, goat or slightly larger bovine astragalus – with a specific form and six easy to handle distinguish the side surfaces. Tali(singular: talus) was Ancient Rome, the so-called astragalas – one of the oldest game-related items known to mankind.
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