News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
view the rest of the comments
I still think they're a test/show of skill for blacksmiths
they've been found in coin hordes and the like... they were definitely more valuable than that
An item that only the absolute best blacksmiths or metalworkers could make.
Sounds valuable.
As an apprentice blacksmith, yeah. I would have difficulty attempting to make that thing out of bronze, and would definitely learn more about smithing than I do now, just making the thing.
You could try making one as your next project?
Wouldn’t they melt them down to make something more useful once it was complete and their skills proven?
If the craftsmanship theory is correct they would probably put them on display to advertise their business.
Machinists will often have a tuner's cube on their desk. It does have a bit of the same feel.
We’re also in the 21st century, with an abundance of wealth and material possessions the past could only imagine. We can afford lots of useless shit laying around.
I’ve always leant towards the gloves theory myself.
If it's a display of skill then it's an advertisement, which is useful. Then again, I'm not an archaeologist or historian, and even if I was apparently I'd still have no clue.
True but who are you going to advertise to? A village would be lucky to have a smith at all, and travel was dangerous so you’re not going to go shopping for someone else. Especially not in the backwater edges of the Roman Empire/Britain.
But why were they only in northern areas?
I am guessing they are a tool of some sort. You can do a lot with angles and rope with two of these.