Amateur archaeologist and metal detectorist Patrick Schuermans was wandering around a field in northern Belgium when his device alerted him to the presence of something underfoot. When he located the item in question, he realized it might be something special.
He had stumbled upon a fragment of a 12-sided Roman object called a dodecahedron. It’s likely more than 1,600 years old, according to the experts at the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren, Belgium, where Schuermans took the fragment. His find will now go on display at the museum alongside an intact bronze dodecahedron found nearby in 1939.
Dodecahedrons have long perplexed archaeologists and historians. They are typically 12-sided geometric objects made of metal with hollow centers. They’re about the size of a baseball and are dotted with large holes; studs protrude from each corner.
In 1739, the first of these twelve-sided hollow objects from ancient Roman times was discovered in England. Since then, more than a hundred dodecahedrons have been unearthed, but their purpose remains unknown.
They’re all different sizes and weights, spanning 4 to 11 cm (about 1.5 to 4.5 in), and they’ve only been found in the northwestern regions of the Roman Empire, many at ancient burial sites. Most can be dated to the 2nd and 3rd century AD.
So far, archaeologists have not come across any mention of the puzzling objects in written texts. Nobody knows for certain how the Romans used them. Some theories are that they functioned as measuring devices, calendars, weapons or tools.
Experts at the Gallo-Roman Museum have another idea: The Romans may have used them for magical rituals, such as predicting the future and sorcery, which Christianity - the religion of the later Roman Empire - forbade.
For now, and perhaps forever, the mystery of the Roman dodecahedrons remains unsolved.
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