Patrick Schuermans, an amateur archaeologist, discovered a fragment of a Roman dodecahedron in Belgium, which is estimated to be 1600 years old, using a metal detector.. According to Live Science, over the past 200 years, about 100 mysterious objects have been found in Europe - hollow 12-sided geometric shells made of cast metal the size of a baseball, with large holes on each side and spikes at the corners.. But no one knows how they were used.
According to the curator of the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren, Guido Krimers, there were several hypotheses about the purpose of objects: a calendar, an instrument for measuring the earth or a scepter, but none of them seemed completely satisfactory.. Scientists think that most likely the mysterious objects were used for witchcraft and divination..
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Creamers and his colleagues at the Gallo-Roman Museum received the fragment from the person who discovered it and identified it in December.. It consists of only one corner with one corner rod, but was most certainly part of a dodecahedron, which originally measured just over five centimeters across..
Schuermans found the fragment in a plowed field near the small town of Cortessem in Belgian north Flanders.. According to Krimers, the Gallo-Roman Museum already has a complete dodecahedron discovered near the Roman walls of Tongeren in 1939.. The new fragment will be added to the exposition in February.
The first Roman dodecahedron discovered in modern times was found in England in the 18th century, and since then about 120 such dodecahedrons have been found in Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland..
It is impossible to date the metal itself, but some dodecahedrons have been found buried in layers of earth that date back to between the 1st and 5th centuries AD..
Earlier, Norwegian archaeologists announced that they were able to discover the oldest rune stone, whose age is estimated at 2000 years.. That is, he is several centuries older than the previous record holder..