The cities likely had some form of guild system to prove claims like this.

The middle of nowhere you could prove yourself with a standardized piece of work.

___

Though personally I like the "glove grandma" video of her crocheting gloves with the pieces.

The knitting aid is persuasive. It fits with the geography, explains the different hole sizes, and it explains the knobs.

Here's one of those vids; there are many more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76AvV601yJ0

I don't really buy that theory. There's no explanation for why it needs to be this very-hard-to-cast bronze dodecahedron, instead of just a wooden board with pegs and holes, which is all that would be needed for the video above.

It's possible that most were made out of common materials. Only those made of something sufficiently resilient survived for us to find.

Basically a show off piece for those with enough coin!

Why not? If it was a common item, it would be natural that there a deluxe versions for e.g. the royal household.

The cheap and simple versions would have rotted away by now.

The article mentions that none of them exhibit wear marks that are characteristic of tools.

Do you think show pieces in rich households would be used?

I’d argue if they did, someone was getting fired immediately.

Have we found any other shows pieces for other household items? Because if not, it’s very unlikely that’s the case

Yes, all the time. Like silverware, ornamental swords/weapons like axes, jewelry.

I’ve seen many vases and other such vessels in the homes of rich people that are not used to store liquids, but instead sit there empty on a console table in the hallway!

In that case this isn't a tool, it's a decoration. And if none of them are worn, then the decoration isn't imitating a knitting tool, since some would show wear if that were its actual use.

Would the royal household also have decorative brass stone masons' chisels, carpenters' planes, doctors' scalpels, and farmers' sickles?

I don't really buy that theory. Do we have any other examples of fancy decorative versions of working class tools?

Anecdotally, I have seen decorative plates hanging on walls, spinning wheels, ships wheels, oil lamps, etc all used decoratively in contemporary settings.

Annoyingly, there's no wear. It's not a tool.

Also: the size of the tube in French knitting isn't controlled by the size of the hole, it's controlled by the spacing of the pegs. You have to pass the wool over the pegs, so logically the pegs should be cylindrical not round. Earliest evidence for French knitting is 1535. There's no evidence for knitting of any kind until centuries after these things.

I'm going with prentice piece, based on the lack of wear. You hang a diploma on the wall, you put a prentice piece on a shelf for 30 years and barely touch it. (Although the gold examples would argue against this, I think).

Why would there be wear in metal? Maybe from hands over years?

The peg spacing is a very good point and maybe the disqualifier.

I'm very dubious about the knitting claim. Woven textiles seem to go back 27,000 years. Knitting is just weaving, with fewer steps, using sticks.

I don't know if you've ever done French knitting or not, but you need to use a tool to lever the wool over the pegs. Something like a crochet hook. Traceology is the term sometimes used by archaeologists for examining this kind of wear, and they're pretty good at it - Aaron Deter-Wolf[1], for example, studies needles to determine if they were used for sewing or for tattooing.

Weaving, yes, and nålebinding is ancient (6500 BCE) but for some reason knitting doesn't seem to turn up until 10th century Egypt. Fabrics do get preserved sometimes, and knitting, like nålebinding, has the advantage of being portable. You'd think, if the technique was discovered significantly earlier, there'd be something to show it. A pair of knitting needles in a tomb somewhere, at least. After all the floors of iron age round houses seem to be littered with loom weights[2], and needles are also common finds. So where are the knitting needles?

For me, it's the gold examples that put the fly in the ointment of every theory (including my favourite). One imagines a Neopythagorean cult or something, but then you'd expect the geographic distribution to be different.

[1] https://tdoa.academia.edu/AaronDeterWolf [2] https://studenttheses.universiteitleiden.nl/access/item%3A26...

Is there any info about where the pieces were found? If they are apprentice pieces there ought to be clues in their found locations.

It's not persuasive, it's impossible. Knitting was unknown to the Romans.

> The cities likely had some form of guild system to prove claims like this.

> The middle of nowhere you could prove yourself with a standardized piece of work.

Which is why it's significant that none have been found in Rome, or any of the major warmer cities.

Why? This could have been just some local system in that region.

I think you and the poster are in agreement. The significance is that you wouldn't need knitted gloves in Mediterranean climates. So if this was for some other use or as a novelty, you'd expect it evenly distributed throughout the empire

> you'd expect it evenly distributed throughout the empire

Why? Large premodern states were almost never strongly culturally homogeneous. Especially below the upper class/elite level.

You are trying to make the facts fit the theory.

Also, if we assume this were some kind of guild-related standard, it becomes even more odd that they are not mentioned in any accounts or records.

We have very few accounts or records surviving in general (and basically none at all from certain periods). There are a few books about agriculture, architecture, medicine etc. surviving but thats it. Basically all non political/military/religious/cultural texts had been lost

Why none in Roman North Africa or all the other provinces in the east which were also "the middle of nowhere" with the same needs of metal work as Gallia/Britain.

Cultures and traditions are different in different places, even with gigabit internet and ubiquitous literacy.

Roman North Africa was thoroughly Romanized by the era these start showing up, and the eastern provinces were as well. The might be some cultural reason these show up where they do, seems likely, it's very, very dubious that this cultural reason had to do with metalworkers identifying themselves since the sort of Roman metal working technology and culture around it was actually very standardized across the empire at this time.

Well, the regions the dodecahedrons have been found were mostly not thoroughly Romanised, right? From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron: "at least 116 similar objects have been found in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom".

No, that's not right at all. Those areas were all part of the Roman empire and thoroughly Romanized as well. They used generally identical Roman technologies in Britain as North Africa or Italy, spoke the same Latin, used the same building styles, clothing styles varied primarily by how many layers they wore, they had the same legal system, and shared Roman arts and culture.

Man of those countries speak Germanic languages now since they were invaded by Germanic speaking people after the Western Roman Empire collapsed, but there's still Roman ruins and old Roman cities to be found in all of those countries.

>spoke the same Latin,

It depends.

* yes, roughly the same Latin, and only in N. Africa & the Western European provinces, not the eastern provinces

Actually have they collapsed ? The Germanic king actually follow Roman rule practices. Strange argument I knew. Especially after the famous history of the fall of the Roman Empire.

Germanic kings in Spain followed Rome's legacy.

Why would they need knit mittens/gloves in North Africa?

I don't think they would, geographic frequency actually does make the knitting tool idea more compelling, though none of the dodecahedra show any sign of wear from use which makes the knitting tool hypothesis sound unlikely - if the dodecahedra was a tool it wasn't used frequently at all. I don't think any hypothesis is all that compelling, they are very much a mystery.

> culture around it was actually very standardized across the empire at this time.

We really have no data at all to back such a claim.

We barely even know anything about how metalworkers and other skilled craftsmen organized themselves back in those days in any part of the empire

As someone from the former capital of Raetia ;-) I might add "Since then, at least 116 similar objects have been found in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom"

PS: Still humbled and amazed to find my small hometown of Cambodunum (70k people) on maps of major Roman roads like

https://latin4everyone.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/roman_roa...

The Roman Empire wasn't homogeneous.

Going from Rome to Lyon was about two weeks of travel. Paris and London about a month. Possibly (much) longer depending on season and how much funds you had.

You can imagine how often the average metalworker from Rome visited these places.