– It could be a cheating die, chuckles archaeologist Aaron Johnston. He is studying the tiny lead die that has just been found. It doesn’t exactly have normal shapes. The oblong cube becomes small in the rough working habits of Svein Magne Rydjord. It was he, the power worker from Romsdal, who found it with his metal detector. – The eye on the die probably says that it is from before 1450, says Rydjord. A watershed in history then occurred. DICE ROLL SIX: Archaeologist Aaron Johnston admires the find. Photo: Webjørn S. Espeland / news Very rarely “The die is thrown” Julius Cæsar is said to have said when he crossed the Rubicon river to carry out a coup d’état. It was hardly the cube that turned up at the Rauma river, but cubes are surprisingly old. It is written about them in the Bible, and in Iran they have found dice that are about 5000 years old. – It is very rare that we receive cubes of lead, says county conservator Bjørn Ringstad. He talks about Norwegian discoveries where dice are made from bone, which go all the way back to the 4th century. – Then they are clearly inspired by the Roman Empire and play from there, says Ringstad. The lead cube that was under the topsoil near Åndalsnes is probably from between 1100 and 1450, he thinks. HOME LAGA: The cube is not the usual cube shape, and has an unusual placement on the eye. Photo: Webjørn S. Espeland / news Science = random Dutch research has shown that dice from the middle of the 15th century have the same pattern as today: Top and bottom are always 7. So 1 and 6 are on opposite sides. On the lead cube from Romsdalen, 1 and 4 stand above each other, and 2–3 and 5–6. Much less standardized. The Dutch researchers think it is natural, since the random was not as widespread before Galileo and science broke through during the Renaissance. Back then, people thought that the gods decided everything, so it didn’t matter if the dice were odd. But what could the lead cube have been used for by the owner, who perhaps died during the Black Death that ravaged Norway at the time? SECRET: Karane won’t reveal the exact location, but it’s in this area! Photo: Webjørn S. Espeland / news Gambling or board games – Maybe gambling for money, speculates Svein Magne Rydjord. It is hardly improbable. At the outlet of the Rauma river there were as many as 49 (!) beerhouses, according to a much later source in 1791. It may also have been used for board games. In the Icelandic sagas written in the 12th and 14th centuries, checkers, mills, backgammon and the Viking favorite hnefatafl are mentioned. Anyway, it was an exciting find for the detector seeker. – Lead gives a very similar effect to gold, so I was hoping for that at first, but this was also tough, says Rydjord. In the area, he has previously found many buttons from the 18th century, as well as piles of German cartridge cases from the 1940s. His two best finds were two bowl clasps from the Viking Age and three 700-year-old silver coins, which yielded a Finnish salary of NOK 30,000. – There have also been a lot of beer corks and cans, he says. After many hundreds of years under the topsoil at Åndalsnes, the lead cube now travels to Trondheim, and continued its work at the NTNU Science Museum.
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Found ancient cube of lead at Sogge Åndalsnes in Rauma – news Møre og Romsdal – Local news, TV and radio
