My personal idea is that they are objects created both to flex metalworking craftsman skill and in worship of sacred geometry. Ancient peoples ascribed divinity to the harmonies of the universe, especially the harmonies in mathematics like geometry. The fancier looking platonic solids like dodecahedron and icosohedron have almost magical levels of symmetry built in to them making them both aesthetically pleasing complex shapes. The fact they even exist inspires philosophical and even spiritual thoughts. As far as I understand romans had some very impressive archetecture incorporating mathematical ratios almost constantly, archetects and metal workers may very well have needed to worship geometry as a divine aspect in order to achieve such neurotic levels of mathematics in their aesthetic.
My theory is that they had no practical purpose, they were just a trendy knickknack that eventually fell out of fashion. A Roman equivalent of a fidget spinner or something.
In a few thousand years whatever has become of humanity will be digging up fidget spinners and wondering about them in the same way we do with dodecahedrons. It’s not as if anyone will have been preserving fidget spinner media for millennia to explain them.
Add comment