{"id":261734,"date":"2024-05-13T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T11:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=261734"},"modified":"2024-05-05T06:06:19","modified_gmt":"2024-05-05T05:06:19","slug":"newcastle-student-investigates-roman-12-sided-mystery-objects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/05\/newcastle-student-investigates-roman-12-sided-mystery-objects\/","title":{"rendered":"Newcastle Student Investigates Roman 12-Sided ‘Mystery Objects’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Norton Disney dodecahedron featured in ‘Digging for Britain’. Image courtesy of Lorena Hitchens<\/p><\/div>\n

A Newcastle University doctoral student <\/em>shares her expertise on mysterious Roman artefacts called dodecahedra.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

9 Jan 2024 <\/em>– Lorena Hitchens was invited to appear on the programme following the discovery of a dodecahedron during an archaeological excavation in Lincolnshire.<\/p>\n

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To date, about 130 dodecahedra have been documented between the 18th<\/sup> and 21st<\/sup> centuries. All of them were discovered across what was the north-western edge of the Roman empire, mostly in the provinces of Britannia, Gaul, and Germania (now England and Wales, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany.<\/p>\n

Over thirty of the objects or fragments have been discovered in Britain – one of these, which was unearthed in Newcastle in the 1970s, is now on display at the Corbridge Roman Town museum<\/a>, alongside two others from sites along Hadrian\u2019s Wall.<\/p>\n

Roman dodecahedra are complex, 12-sided, hollow bronze ‘mystery objects’ dating to the late Roman Empire. Each dodecahedron varies in size and decoration, and all have variable-size holes in each face and studs at each corner. They are all unique in their size and weight, ranging in size from a golf ball to a cricket ball.<\/p>\n