What a wonderful rabbit hole to go down. My takeaways are it could possibly be used for knitting, but traditional spool knitting that the Grandma uses in the video doesn’t show up in history until the 1500s. If the Romans did use it for gloves then knitting has been around much longer than we have evidence of or they were using a different method with the dodecahedron.
I think I also read these were usually found with treasures and with minimal or no wear, so there isn’t any evidence they were used for anything.
The best suggested explanation IMO is that it’s a way for blacksmiths to demonstrate their skill.
“lol stupid scientists don’t know what knitting is” I would file under “actively anti-intellectual”.
Kinda like the little nib on top of old saw blades. It doesn’t really do anything, but if they can make that complex little nib, then they can probably make pretty decent sawblades too.
Iirc it was only found in northern areas. Can’t see demonstrations of skill being only there.
Except that’s probably not what they’re for, I saw a video recently (I think it was this one) that went into detail about the reasons why it doesn’t make much sense for these to be a knitting tool.
There’s a lesson here about the differences between history and a good historical narrative, but that’s the lesson of most history and no one ever listens to it.
There’s a lesson here about the differences between history and a good historical narrative, but that’s the lesson of most history and no one ever listens to it.
There’s a lesson here about the differences between history and a good historical narrative, but that’s the lesson of most history and no one ever listens to it.
First and foremost: knitting wasn’t invented until centuries later and didn’t appear in Europe until about the 14th century.
I hope this is the next episode of hardcore history. I could use 30 hours of Dan Carlin context on knitting…
Decoding the Unknown (also by Simon Whistler) did a video on these as well
What’s up with the narrator? He’s got like 20 big channels he reads for. Are the channels connected and run by the same group, or does he host for a bunch of independent channels?
I think he’s just snowballed in popularity over the years because he’s good at reading these scripts in a way that sounds both smart and fun. The different channels focus on different styles and subject areas, letting you pick and choose what kind of thing you’re interested in.
I rather like his “Decoding the Unknown” channel, where he gets scripts debunking various paranormal or otherwise mysterious events and he reads them for the first time as it’s being recorded, taking lots of opportunities to interject his own theories and speculation and just generally rag on the concept of the paranormal as he goes.
I’m pretty sure he maintains the YT channels themselves, but he has a host of writers who write his scripts
The two Channels / Podcasts I follow are Decoding the Unknown (deep dives into unsolved mysteries and paranormal debunks) and the Casual Criminalist (true crime)
For both, he does a cold read, and often interjects with his own stories and theories
maybe its for measuring how much pasta you need to boil
That’s a d12. Clearly, the Romans were using it to play D&D.
Last time one of these threads popped up, I saw someone suggest that it might have been a holder for some of those bottles with pointed bottoms the Romans had, don’t remember the name. I’m not sure if this is a hypothesis with any level of acceptance, but it feels like it could be plausible just from looking at the thing, having different sized holes would allow different sizes of bottle to fit, and you’d want feet for each possible side that it could be resting on, which would explain the prongs.
