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Today I learned @lemmy.ml

Flying Squid @lemmy.world

2y ago

TIL the Ancient Romans could have played D and D because they (and the Egyptians) invented the 20-sided die.

www.roger-pearse.com

A Roman rock-crystal icosahedron (20-sided dice) in the Louvre

8 comments

The article doesn't support anything your title says
they (and the Egyptians) invented
So you mean the Egyptians invented it and the Greeks/Romans simply appropriated it like they did everything else.
- Conveniently forgets the whole dynasty when Egypt was ruled by Greeks
- Um, its from when Egypt was Greek.
- Possibly. The article doesn't make clear which is older.
  
  We know that Plato and co did a lot of chatting about the shape at least. Since the period of Egypt that these old dice come from is the Greek-influenced Ptolemaic, and Rome was pretty big on its Greek culture anyway, I wonder if it started use there?
The Egyptians also invented the five-sided dice but they were too huge to roll.
I mean... You can play D&D with 6-sided dice, 4-sided dice, a deck of cards, matchsticks, rock paper scissors, /dev/random, bones with symbols carved onto them, and leaves in the wind.

8 comments