The Roman dodecahedron is an item that has turned up in a lot of sites where people do archaeology. While most items, given time, have their purpose easily or at least approximately deduced by researchers, the Roman dodecahedron’s purpose is largely baffling to even the most studied of archaeologists, who have no idea on where to start with it. This in turn would probably baffle the Romans, who would have seen it as a common household item, no different from a spoon or a comb.

Suppose a few thousand years from now, archaeologists were excavating our remains and had varying degrees of success deducing what different things were for. If you had to guess what common household item of ours would stump them the most, what item would you guess it would be?

  • Punkie@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    21 hours ago

    I read somewhere that stainless steel (like common household items, which also has some chromium in it) would outlive plastics, and could even survive in geological strata like fossils, escept they will last indefinitely. Recently, I saw some “premium toy site” sold “high quality stainless steel” butt plugs. Assuming it’s not being superfluous (one reviewer said “it’s nice and heavy,” and I don’t use butt plugs, but that’s a quality one wants?), this could confuse a lot of fossil hunters, especially 304 and 316 stainless, which has been known to last hundreds of years under the sea. 316 stainless steel, for example, is widely used in marine applications like boat hardware, underwater structures, and offshore platforms.