Dice, Bone, Solid Pip

Description

Game accessories; Bone die (solid pip)

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

Further details:

Dice with solid dots or ‘pips’ gradually replaced the ‘ring and dot’ style used throughout Europe from Roman times during the Tudor period. Specially made for us, as genuine bone dice are not readily available.

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 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