this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
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Historical Artifacts

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Just a community for everyone to share artifacts, reconstructions, or replicas for the historically-inclined to admire!

Generally, an artifact should be 100+ years old, but this is a flexible requirement if you find something rare and suitably linked to an era of history, not a strict rule. Anything over 100 is fair game regardless of rarity.

Generally speaking, ruins should go to !historyruins@lemmy.world

Illustrations of the past should go to !historyillustrations@lemmy.world

Photos of the past should go to !HistoryPorn@lemmy.world

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Terracotta die, Indus Valley, modern-day Pakistan, 2600-1800 BCE (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 months ago by PugJesus@lemmy.world to c/historyartifacts@lemmy.world
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[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (3 children)

One and six not on opposing sides? What primitive technology.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 months ago

I was curious, if this actually mattered. With modern casino dice, all the sides are equally likely, so it doesn't there.

But back in the days, this did matter. Much like the die in the picture, dice were rarely perfectly cubic. However, opposing sides were still typically of a similar size and therefore similarly likely for the die to land on. So, by putting 1 and 6 on opposing sides, it was overall still relatively balanced. Source

There is also something to be said about the pips. Historic and modern non-casino dice have material removed for the pips, so the sides 4, 5 and 6 are actually lighter and therefore more likely to show up on top. Source

The opposing sides adding to 7 does not aid with that, and I'm assuming actually makes things worse. If 5 and 6 were on opposing sides, the die would get dragged towards both sides and be somewhat less likely to land on high numbers.
Apparently, from around the 11th century until the 14th century, this was actually a popular way for numbering dice. Source
But of course, if you actually need that precision, then you buy casino dice these days, where the pips are filled in.

[–] BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Maybe we've been doing it wrong?

[–] Psychodelic@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Does it matter?

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago

I've apparently been doing research on this, since before you asked, so here's what I found: https://lemmy.ml/comment/12337353