Unremarkable Dice

Dice are implements used for generating random numbers in a variety of social and gambling games. Known since antiquity, dice have been called the oldest gaming instruments. Archaeologists can’t pinpoint the first human who threw dice, but they do know this: Unlike many customs that started in one place and then spread, dice-throwing appeared independently all across the populated world. The oldest known dice -dating back at least 8,000 years- consisted of found objects such as fruit pits, pebbles, and seashells. But the direct precursors of today’s dice were bone: the ankle bones of hoofed animals, such as sheep and oxen. These bones -later called astragali by the Greeks- were chosen because they are roughly cube-shaped, with two rounded sides that couldn’t be landed on, and four flat ones that could. Which side would be facing up after a toss, or a series of tosses, was as much a gamble to our ancestors as it is to us today. Evidence found in Egyptian tombs has suggested that this civilization used them as early as 2000 BC. Other data shows that primitive civilizations throughout the Americas also used dice. These dice were composed of ankle bones from various animals. Marked on four faces, they were likely used as magical devices that could predict the future. The ancient Greeks and Romans used dice made of bone and ivory. The dice of most of these early cultures were made in numerous shapes and sizes. The modern day cubical dice originated in China and have been dated back as early as 600 BC. a recent study of dice reveals that truly balanced dice did not really exist until the Renaissance. In the pre-colonial Americas, dice were typically just two-sided, painted on each side. According to archaeologists Warren DeBoer and Barbara Voorhies, native people throughout North America and Mesoamerica constructed dice of a wide variety of materials, such as fruit pits, shells, or teeth, or even split reeds or sticks. The typical die was curved on one side and flatter on the other. Six-sided dice came into use later and may have been introduced by Europeans. On dice, pips are the small dots on each face of a common six-sided die. These pips are typically arranged in patterns denoting the numbers one through six. The sum of opposing faces traditionally adds up to seven. Dice are thousands of years old, yet as popular as ever.