preview.tinyurl.com/57eeue -> gizmodo.com/5016562/the-ancient-romans-were-gamers-2nd-century-glass-d20-sold-for-17925
That's because an incredibly old, incredibly valuable Roman glass d20 was sold at auction by the famous Christie's auction house. Historians know the symbols are Roman, but have yet to figure out which game for which it was used. Any guesses, Gizmodo readers/ancient gaming history buffs?
FlashSandbox: The thing was sold December 11, 2003 - The BoingBoing Got It First snarkiness is kinda a moot point when they were both 5 years late to the party.
The circle with a dot in the center is gold, the fancy cursive L is also for lapis lazuli, the one on the bottom that's like an A turned on it's side is a variant for arsenic, the long p at top is for lead (plumbum), the H with a curl at the bottom is also lead, I believe, but it's obviously damaged, so can't be 100% certain. The last one at top, the two curved lines resting apart, is most likely tin.
iridius: the whole point of having the meaning in the words rather than the order is that you can change the order for emphasis (just like yoda) @Gizmodo: not strictly a gadget .
HOWEVER, if I had a set of these, I'd get back into gaming just for the shock value of playing with centuries-old dice. Being glass, there isn't much I could do to hurt them (in normal dice-play) that time hasn't done 100 times over.
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