Interesting Thingies

No mention of dodecahedrons has been found in contemporary accounts or pictures of the time. Speculative uses include:  A specific type of dice for a game since lost to history.  A magical object, possibly from the Celtic religion. A similar small, hollow object with protrusions was recovered from Pompeii in a box with either jewellery or items for magic.  A toy for children.  A weight for fishing nets.  The head of a chieftain’s scepter.  A kind of musical instrument.  A tool to estimate distances and survey land, especially for military purposes.  An instrument to estimate the size of and distance to objects on the battlefield for the benefit of the artillery.  A device for detecting counterfeit coins.  A calendar for determining the spring and autumn equinoxes and/or the optimal date for sowing wheat.  A candle holder. (Wax residue was found in one or two of the objects recovered.)  A connector for metal or wooden poles....

The ancient Romans were masters of engineering, constructing vast networks of roads, aqueducts, ports, and massive buildings, whose remains have survived for two millennia. Many of these structures were built with concrete: Rome’s famed Pantheon , which has the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome and was dedicated in A.D. 128, is still intact, and some ancient Roman aqueducts still deliver water to Rome today. Meanwhile, many modern concrete structures have crumbled after a few decades. For many years, researchers have assumed that the key to the ancient concrete’s durability was based on one ingredient: pozzolanic material such as volcanic ash from the area of Pozzuoli, on the Bay of Naples. This specific kind of ash was even shipped all across the vast Roman empire to be used in construction, and was described as a key ingredient for concrete in accounts by architects and historians at the time. Now, a team of investigators from MIT, Harvard University, and laboratories in...