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u/NudaVeritas1 11h ago
it's a roman plumbus of course
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u/badCherryCoke 10h ago
These guys talk like they don't have a plumbus at home
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u/Big-Basil-4059 10h ago
Just at home? I have a pocket plumbus that I take everywhere with me. Never know when you are gonna need one
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u/Sea-Course-5171 9h ago
actually more interestingly, ask what things they put on the table alongside salt and pepper. We know they had a third bottle, but all sources we have only say "Salt, Pepper, Etc." which was apparently the standard way of referring to those things in literature at the time, but we have literally no idea what it could actually be (aside from barely substantiated guesses).
There's also the case of Sylphum. It's an Herb that was so widely used that the Romans ate it to extinction as far as the Romans knew, but because they were convinced it was extinct, we have no info about what it could have been. There's several guesses as to what plant it could be, or to which plants it was related, but we don't actually know what it was.
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u/KindLiterature3528 8h ago
Wasn't there a fermented fish paste that they put an almost everything?
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u/BurntNeurons 6h ago
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u/Sea-Course-5171 1h ago
We don't know. It could have been Garum, it could have been Vinegar, it could have been wine, it could have been a spice, it could have been rosemary, or thyme, or majoram, or seasoning wine, it could have been something sweet, something spicy, something savory, something fermented. Coming up with maybe answers isn't hard, we've been doing that since we found out about the third condiments, but we have no way of actually knowing the answer. We just don't know.
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u/Sea-Course-5171 1h ago
We don't know. It could have been Garum, the fermented fish sauce, it could have been Vinegar, it could have been wine, it could have been a spice, it could have been rosemary, or thyme, or majoram, or seasoning wine, it could have been something sweet, something spicy, something savory, something fermented. Coming up with maybe answers isn't hard, we've been doing that since we found out about the third condiments, but we have no way of actually knowing the answer. We just don't know.
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u/BobTheZygota 4h ago
I bet its lead. Romans really liked to put lead in wine for better taste even tho they knew it kills
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u/Sea-Course-5171 1h ago edited 1h ago
sweetening wine with lead takes several days. You're adding lead so it can form lead acetate, or sugar of lead, which has a very noticeable pretty distinct sweet flavor. That chemical reaction is very very slow though.
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u/kayasoul 2h ago
What if its a herb mixture of whatever is in the house called cetera, because it is just the rest of spices in the house and therefore et cetera...
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7h ago edited 7h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Ok-Dare1500 7h ago
If in fact there is a connection then there are two possibilites:
- Silphium was a different Ferula species that died out and F. drudeana would be it's closest relative.
- Silphium was F. drudeana so it would have never gone extinct and would have survived in a tiny range in Turkey and gone unrecognized as silphium until Miski made the connection.
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u/PeterNippelstein 4h ago
Wasn't it garum? Kind of like fish sauce?
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u/Sea-Course-5171 1h ago
We don't know. It could have been Garum, it could have been Vinegar, it could have been wine, it could have been a spice, it could have been rosemary, or thyme, or majoram, or seasoning wine, it could have been something sweet, something spicy, something savory, something fermented. Coming up with maybe answers isn't hard, we've been doing that since we found out about the third condiments, but we have no way of actually knowing the answer. We just don't know.
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u/GeoffreysComics 10h ago
One of the most recent issues of Fantastic Four involves a time travel adventure where Reed Richards invents these little things and then gets the Roman soldiers he helped to promise never to divulge who created them or what they were for. (He was pretending to be a Gaul and he told them that it would only make the Romans look bad to admit they got assistance from a Gaul. It was fun)
The entire current run of Fantastic Four almost all have a similar format where a genuine science fact or mystery is extrapolated into an FF adventure. For example: the WTF particle and our base 10 number system existing because we have 10 fingers.
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u/VanillaRoadie 16m ago
I especially loved the plaque in the museum having a new plaque placed underneath it basically saying "Nevermind, it's not a mystery, it's just something the fantastic four used to solve a crisis in the timeline" XD
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u/MiddleSir7104 10h ago
Clearly its a resonator from our ancestors playing path of exile in real life
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u/Khaos_Gorvin 10h ago
Why would you need to ask something so obvious? What, you don't have one at home?
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u/SilhoueX 9h ago
I'm like pretty sure it's for making denser string/ropes.
The ones owned by noble women were for tying fancy hair styles. Both would use lubricant to keep the tool slippery. This is why the devices were remarkably well preserved. Why each was made to the size of the craftspersons hand.
The material was invariably antimicrobial. Good for human hair and good for not weaving disease into your ropes. This also explains why they were so well preserved. People understood you had to store such things in oxygen/humidity poor environments or they will tarnish. E.g. wiped off, wrapped in cloth, shoved in a jar between uses. The nubs have wear on the ends because that's how the tool was gripped when lubricated and in use.
Some were found with wax. This was was probably used as lubricant.
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u/Best_Copy8675 8h ago
It was probably just a decorative or ceremonial piece. You have to understand how simple people are.
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u/According-Paper4641 8h ago
It is for making gloves with yarn, like a hand knitting method. It was figured out a few years ago.
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u/CallMeHuckle 8h ago
Is mean, isn’t it’s more so that’s the only thing they have been able to do with it?
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u/megamanx4321 7h ago
I've also seen a theory that it was used to make jewelry with copper or gold wire. This makes the most sense since it is claimed they were primarily found in wealthy homes.
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u/johnny_cashmere 7h ago
"You have no idea how much Dih you're gonna suck. You've never met 6 shots deep you, you're gonna snort ketamine off Dih and the whole nation is gonna know"
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u/METRlOS 11h ago
It's obvious what it is, get out of here with your stupid questions.