History Channel: Did they use that to communicate with Ancient Aliens? We might never know the full truth!

Knowing the Romans, it might be for measuring cock girth of their house boys.

Be careful, though, they sometimes have mindflayers inside them who want to have sex with you.

An ancient self sealing stem bolt analogue.

I love it when I buy a piece of gear from trade and it's got a resonator about to pop.

Except those objects were found in coin hordes and the graves of rich aristocrats, and must have been too valuable to be a simple knitting tool.
And for some reason, this style of knitting would have then disappeared until it was reinvented the 16th century.

If it’s truly such a mystery, is it at all possible these only exist because they looked interesting? Just a knick-knack for your shelf?

It's one of the most convincing theories, but also a bit unsatisfying. The question then becomes, why they were made in relatiely large numbers (so that hundreds could be found) with that very specific shape in different parts of the empire.

Romans wielding a great axe

Blacksmith. Benchy.

A knitting helper the size of a grapefruit that would have cost more than what a shepherd earned in a lifetime.

“A huge amount of time, energy and skill was taken to create our dodecahedron, so it was not used for mundane purposes,” writes the group, adding: “They are not of a standard size, so will not be measuring devices. They don’t show signs of wear, so they are not a tool.”

Instead, the group agrees with experts who think dodecahedrons were used for ritualistic or religious purposes. As Smithsonian magazine wrote last year, researchers at Belgium’s Gallo-Roman Museum have hypothesized that Romans used the objects in magical rituals, which could explain dodecahedrons’ absence from historical records: With the Roman Empire’s eventual embrace of Christianity came laws forbidding magic. Practitioners would have had to keep their rituals—and related objects—a secret.

“Roman society was full of superstition,” writes the Norton Disney group. “A potential link with local religious practice is our current working theory. More investigation is required, though.”