Dice, Bone, Ring and Dot

Description

Game accessories; Bone die (ring and dot)

Time period: Roman to Tudor
Materials: Bone
Product Dimensions: 1.0 cm square.

Further details:

Reproduction of the ‘ring and dot’ style used in Europe from Roman times, eventually replaced by dice with solid dots or ‘pips’ in the Tudor period. Specially made for us, this style of dice is not easy to find.

Dice, due to their portability, and their unpredictability when rolled, became the essential tool of the medieval gambler. Numerous dice games, from the simple and silly to quite complex games of strategy are known from the medieval period.

It should be noted that while modern dice have the six opposite the one, the three opposite the four and the five opposite the two, only some medieval dice also had this pattern. Many medieval dice were apparently random in the pattern of the faces and the six-sided dice provided are also randomly marked. That is some will follow the modern pattern but others will not.

The size of dice also varied from the quite large to tiny as did the materials from which they were made including wood, clay, bone, ivory, and in rare cases metals such as silver. Loaded dice and shaved dice have also been found and even dice with more than 6 sides.

Bone dice (from cow) come as is, and to highlight the dots simple period methods included lamp black or red clay smeared over the surfaces and then the surface cleaned back.

Note: This item is a single die.

Suggested age: All