One thing to keep in mind is the geographic distribution of these things. They're mostly found in the province of Gallia and Britain, and not in other regions. There'd be a lot of metalworkers in Rome and the surrounding cities in central and south Italy, but no artifacts like this have been found, and they've found > 100 of them now so the distribution is probably significant.
Also: the size of the tube in French knitting isn't controlled by the size of the hole, it's controlled by the spacing of the pegs. You have to pass the wool over the pegs, so logically the pegs should be cylindrical not round. Earliest evidence for French knitting is 1535. There's no evidence for knitting of any kind until centuries after these things.
I'm going with prentice piece, based on the lack of wear. You hang a diploma on the wall, you put a prentice piece on a shelf for 30 years and barely touch it. (Although the gold examples would argue against this, I think).
I don't know if you've ever done French knitting or not, but you need to use a tool to lever the wool over the pegs. Something like a crochet hook. Traceology is the term sometimes used by archaeologists for examining this kind of wear, and they're pretty good at it - Aaron Deter-Wolf[1], for example, studies needles to determine if they were used for sewing or for tattooing.
Weaving, yes, and nålebinding is ancient (6500 BCE) but for some reason knitting doesn't seem to turn up until 10th century Egypt. Fabrics do get preserved sometimes, and knitting, like nålebinding, has the advantage of being portable. You'd think, if the technique was discovered significantly earlier, there'd be something to show it. A pair of knitting needles in a tomb somewhere, at least. After all the floors of iron age round houses seem to be littered with loom weights[2], and needles are also common finds. So where are the knitting needles?
For me, it's the gold examples that put the fly in the ointment of every theory (including my favourite). One imagines a Neopythagorean cult or something, but then you'd expect the geographic distribution to be different.
I don't really buy that theory. There's no explanation for why it needs to be this very-hard-to-cast bronze dodecahedron, instead of just a wooden board with pegs and holes, which is all that would be needed for the video above.
I’ve seen many vases and other such vessels in the homes of rich people that are not used to store liquids, but instead sit there empty on a console table in the hallway!
In that case this isn't a tool, it's a decoration. And if none of them are worn, then the decoration isn't imitating a knitting tool, since some would show wear if that were its actual use.
Anecdotally, I have seen decorative plates hanging on walls, spinning wheels, ships wheels, oil lamps, etc all used decoratively in contemporary settings.
I think you and the poster are in agreement. The significance is that you wouldn't need knitted gloves in Mediterranean climates. So if this was for some other use or as a novelty, you'd expect it evenly distributed throughout the empire
Why none in Roman North Africa or all the other provinces in the east which were also "the middle of nowhere" with the same needs of metal work as Gallia/Britain.
Roman North Africa was thoroughly Romanized by the era these start showing up, and the eastern provinces were as well. The might be some cultural reason these show up where they do, seems likely, it's very, very dubious that this cultural reason had to do with metalworkers identifying themselves since the sort of Roman metal working technology and culture around it was actually very standardized across the empire at this time.
Well, the regions the dodecahedrons have been found were mostly not thoroughly Romanised, right? From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron: "at least 116 similar objects have been found in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom".
No, that's not right at all. Those areas were all part of the Roman empire and thoroughly Romanized as well. They used generally identical Roman technologies in Britain as North Africa or Italy, spoke the same Latin, used the same building styles, clothing styles varied primarily by how many layers they wore, they had the same legal system, and shared Roman arts and culture.
Man of those countries speak Germanic languages now since they were invaded by Germanic speaking people after the Western Roman Empire collapsed, but there's still Roman ruins and old Roman cities to be found in all of those countries.
Actually have they collapsed ? The Germanic king actually follow Roman rule practices. Strange argument I knew. Especially after the famous history of the fall of the Roman Empire.
I don't think they would, geographic frequency actually does make the knitting tool idea more compelling, though none of the dodecahedra show any sign of wear from use which makes the knitting tool hypothesis sound unlikely - if the dodecahedra was a tool it wasn't used frequently at all. I don't think any hypothesis is all that compelling, they are very much a mystery.
We have very few accounts or records surviving in general (and basically none at all from certain periods). There are a few books about agriculture, architecture, medicine etc. surviving but thats it. Basically all non political/military/religious/cultural texts had been lost
Going from Rome to Lyon was about two weeks of travel. Paris and London about a month. Possibly (much) longer depending on season and how much funds you had.
You can imagine how often the average metalworker from Rome visited these places.
As someone from the former capital of Raetia ;-) I might add "Since then, at least 116 similar objects have been found in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom"
PS: Still humbled and amazed to find my small hometown of Cambodunum (70k people) on maps of major Roman roads like
