Knitting a Glove with a Roman Dodecahedron

Some archeologist apparantly found some roman devices, and were perplexed as to their purpose.  

Knitters were like "that looks like it would make a nice glove-knitting form."

What are your thoughts?  Have you used something like this?

I find it interesting that all the holes are different sizes, which makes sense from the "different fingers need different sizes" perspective.
As with many of my cohorts, I have done peg knitting on an old spool as a child and if you got fancy and wanted a bigger peg knitter, it usually had more pegs - 6 or 8 instead of just 4 - as you got bigger. The Dodecahedron only has 5 pegs regardless of which hole.

Gloves were likely the sorts of things that would have been worn until they were done, so I'm not surprised they have not yet found examples. That said, nalbinding predated knitting. It would be interesting for someone experienced with that art to experiment with the model. I'm wondering if there's a nalbinding way to have extra stitches between the pegs? The pegs kept the overall "shape", but there were more than 5 stitches on the larger holes.

I will watch the video later, but my initial reaction is that we may be close, but some skepticism could be reasonable.

A very little research found some more videos, suggesting this idea of a possible use of this tool for knitting gloves, has been around for at least 9 years. This brief video gives an idea of how to do multiple fingers on a single Dodecahedron and how to use it to knit the body of the glove also.


Beau's video refers to an earlier experimenter implying that these tools were found in different sizes. However, that still leaves me wondering what an experienced Nalbinder would do, at least for larger sized hands.

I'm still having cognitive issues with the different sized holes. If the stitches are the same size and coming off pegs which are all identically spaced, I don't see how the size of hole makes any difference. It would rely on the stretchiness of the knit to change the size of the finger tube, unless there's some way to increase the number of stitches in one circle.

I just ran across this the other day! It's a good story of why we don't "just trust the experts."

Amy Gardener found this link which shows the dodecahedron being used with a nallbinding technique which I suggested might have been more likely than a knitting technique:


However, the author suggests it was being used for making gold chain, rather than gloves, and demonstrates the technique. This seems to answer the question of the different sized holes, but maybe not the fact that these were commonly found in colder areas.

Makes me wonder: 1. did the gold chain lovers decide to adapt the glove maker or vice versa?
2. Has anyone made a glove on one of these using the nallbinding technique? It would have the great advantage of not unravelling if you got a hole in a critical spot? More research is needed!

I am not a knitter, but that would be a very effective jig for making woven ropes from basic cordage, and the need for differing  but standardized diameter rope   would explain the various sized holes.

I may get one for my paracord lariat project.

Thanks!

https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy3jpx/ancient-roman-dodecahedron-discovered-in-norton-disney

I just saw this article on the front page of a search engine this morning. It was written just a few days ago, and the "experts" are saying it's not for knitting. It's a mystery, lol!

I showed this thread to my spouse and he is very interested in how the metal jig was made! It looks like it was molten metal poured. :D

Kw Velasco wrote:I showed this thread to my spouse and he is very interested in how the metal jig was made! It looks like it was molten metal poured. :D

I would imagine the lost wax casting method would have been the only practical way for them to have been made. Though if a person were to want to make one to experiment, only one face could be made more easily than the whole thing with multiple sizes.

I just saw this BBC article and thought about this thread,