373
Nat 20 (mander.xyz)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] 32 points 11 months ago (12 children)

This doesn't make sense.

Zeta isn't the last letter of the Greek alphabet, Omega is. And Upsilon is the 20th if they could only fit twenty letters on a twenty sided die.

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  • [–] 34 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

    I was able to find a source from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's website. it seems that it would've actually gone up to the 20th letter.

    A number of polyhedral dice made in various materials have survived from the Hellenistic and Roman periods, usually from ancient Egypt when known. Several are in the Egyptian or Greek and Roman collections at the Museum. The icosahedron – 20-sided polyhedron – is frequent. Most often each face of the die is inscribed with a number in Greek and/or Latin up to the number of faces on the polyhedron.

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  • [–] 21 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Thanks for doing the work! I appreciate you

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    The Greek alphabet, which is the earliest known script to systematically include both consonants and vowels, is generally believed to have added vowels when it was adapted from the Phoenician script during the late 9th or early 8th century BCE.

    Sorry, that paragraph is AI written but I was asking about something I know and too lazy to rewrite it myself.

    The Phoenician alphabet which influenced the greek script had 22 letters afaik. Still doesn't match the sides but it's closer

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  • [–] 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Here's another thing that doesn't make sense about that post:

    If you play Dungeons & Dragons, this object probably stops you in your tracks.

    If you just play Dungeons & Dragons, then it looks like the hundreds or thousands of other d20s you've seen. Barely worth a look.

    On the other hand, if you just like dice, like a lot of TTRPG people do, then it might catch your attention.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    If I saw this in The Met, which I’ve visited but this wasn’t on display at the time, it would have stopped me in my tracks even as a TTRPG player. It would feel very anachronistic amongst most of the displays.

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  • [–] -1 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    It’s likely all fake. Olympos is in Greece, not Turkey.

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