Active Users:1180 Time:22/11/2024 08:22:28 PM
Hmm... actually, that d20 COULD be a "d200." Joel Send a noteboard - 11/03/2013 03:39:52 PM

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I'm sure you'll see his response and my own but for anyone else following this I wouldn't want to leave them hanging, but they'd never have any reason to place 20 unique symbols meant to be numbers on a single die, they might have cause to put 9 on one, two of each digit and a pair of blanks, to be used with another die but since they've 3 sets of 9 symbols, 27 symbols for 1-9, 10-90, and 100-900 there's really no reason to have mixtures of those three sets on the same die. You could use 3d10 (or d20 with repeats) each d10 with its own set of symbols, to generate any number between 0-999 with equal probability so long as you included a blank/null/zero symbol for the extra slot on the d10 or the 2 extra slots on a d20. But you'd never have a reason to mix sets.

It is hard to be sure WHAT it is since we can only see half of it. On a fair die there is no need to place each number opposite its counterpart; the chance of rolling either 1 or 20 is the same 5% whether they are adjacent or opposite each other, and the chance of rolling >10 or <10 is the same whether or not all numbers in each category are on one side of some kind of "die equator." Note that the pictured die displays ten faces with no duplicate glyphs; the other side could be a duplicate of that side, or could have the same ten glyphs with the glyph for 10, plus one more with the glyph for 20.

However, if they included glyphs for 0, 1-9, 10-90 and 100 the die could conceivably function as a d200 by rolling it twice and adding the results. IF the die represents numbers, the glyphs for 2, 5, 7, 8, 9 are visible in the photo, as well as those for 10, 20 and 100.

The main problem with that or any numerical interpretation of the die is two of its glyphs (the one between beta, epsilon and theta on the center left and between theta, iota and rho on the upper right) do not look Greek, at least to me. The latter COULD conceivably be the digammma glyph for 6. Wikipedia says that, as a letter, it is designated "wau" with uppercase form F, but had disappeared from most Greek dialects by Ptolemaic times, and remained ONLY to represent 6, in a form now known as "stigma" because its lowercase glyph so resembles a sigma-tau combination they became conflated during the Byzantine era. Uppercase stigma appears to simply be the lowercase writ large, but (if I understood all this correctly) ϛ rather than F would not have been used until the Medieval era.

Alternatively, Ptolemaic Egyptians might have retained the old hieratic symbol for 10, a simple arch (which would fit the orientation better; if the die used ϛ it is turned 90°) but the problem there is that it iota represents 10 in Greek and is clearly visible adjacent to theta on the die. Frankly, I have no idea how they used the die.

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Makes one wonder about the purpose(s) for which the dice were used. - 08/03/2013 10:29:19 AM 763 Views
Re: Makes one wonder about the purpose(s) for which the dice were used. - 08/03/2013 03:43:57 PM 642 Views
Tom would probably be our best source on symbols; apparently ancient Egypt had THREE numeric sets. - 08/03/2013 06:24:27 PM 815 Views
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Also Tom's remark's on the CMB make it pretty definitely not numerical - 10/03/2013 04:21:55 AM 749 Views
Hmm... actually, that d20 COULD be a "d200." - 11/03/2013 03:39:52 PM 940 Views

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