Introduction
My research for the history of dice quickly evolved into research on the history of mankind. In order to keep the paper under the limit, I had to limit my research to a specific aspect of dice. The most interesting aspect of dice is their role in cleromancy and divination. I found many different websites describing different types of fortune-telling throughout all history and all over the world. I remembered discussing the gaming aspect of dice with you, and I wanted to take it a little further than that, so I focused my paper on how people use dice as a way to tell the future. By understanding the future, they can in some sense gain control of their own lives. This sense of control is important to everyone, hence the ubiquity of dice throughout human civilizations. In this paper, I demonstrated how human nature affects our interaction with the world through objects. This was perhaps one of the most important things I have learned all semester. We have to not only look at what objects people use, but why they use them.
Dice, Divination, and the Number 7
Objects are the lenses through which we see the world. Not only can objects tell us about the people who used them, but they can also tell us about the world in which they were used. But objects tell us more than just history. They tell us about human interaction and the human perspective of the world. By analyzing the object in a continuum of objects throughout history, we can gain a broader perspective of the world. The die is a unique object to analyze because its history is as old as time itself. Not only are dice prevalent throughout history, they are also ubiquitous throughout nearly every civilization throughout the world, even those that had no contact with each other. So for that reason, the die is a part of the human DNA. It represents a part of the collective consciousness that everyone shares. Dice appear and function about the same throughout every culture in the world, whether they are made out of wood, stone, or plastic. This die in particular is made out of wood.
This die is 7/16th of an inch tall and wide. It is cube-shaped, the same length in all dimensions. There are six sharp corners that meet at 90 degree angles. These corners form perfectly straight and well-defined edges that run from the top to the bottom. There are six sides to the object, each equal in height and length. There are small circular indentions on each side. Each side has a different amount ranging from the least having one and the most having six. These small circular indentions are arranged so that the side with one has one in the middle, the side with two has two in diagonal corners, the side with three has three organized in a diagonal line, the side with four has four in each corner, the side with five has one in each corner and one in the middle, and the side with six has three in a straight line on one side and three in a straight line on the other side. These small circular indentions appear to have once been painted black, but the paint has worn out since then. The object is chipped in several places on the sides and a few of the corners are worn down. The object is extremely light and fits in the palm of a hand. The die is made out of wood and finished in a light, natural shade. The die appears to be worn out and old. The wood is covered in dirt stains, but otherwise the finish feels resistant to water and other liquids. On the least worn side, faint parallel lines stretch across the entire side. The die makes a pleasant plinking sound when dropped on a table. It can sit on only one side at a time because of the sharpness of its angles. The object appears to look the same from the side and to look the same from the top, except on closer inspection each side has a different number of small circular indentions. The opposite sides add up to seven, so the side with three dots is opposite the side with four dots, the side with two dots is opposite the side with five dots, and the side with one dot is opposite the side with one dot. The significance of the number seven will be discussed later.
With no previous knowledge, the function of this object seems difficult to deduce from the object itself. The object is small, lightweight, easy to carry, and is marked with small circular indentions on each side. The object can only sit on one side when placed on a table. These small circular indentions appear to be the only form of communication this object has with the world and its user. The fact that it can lay on only one side at a time and that each side has a different number of small circular indentions suggests that the number of small circular indentions is the most important function to the user and the world. Whatever that function may be used for is unknown in the apparent design of the object, but as Prown says, the user and the world places meaning on objects. So whatever this object may be used for is determined by the user, and the number of small circular indentions on each side are given meaning by the user as well. This die is made out of wood and appears to be covered in a gloss finish that has prevent the die from decaying or soaking up water over the years. The small circular indentions appear to have been painted black, but have worn off over the years. The wood has a few small dirt stains and a few of the corners are chipped.
Without any context or prior knowledge, the function of the die is unclear. The object is small, lightweight, easy to carry, and is marked with small circular indentions on each side. The object can only sit on one side when placed on a table. These small circular indentions appear to be the only form of communication this object has with the world and its user. The fact that it can lay on only one side at a time and that each side has a different number of small circular indentions suggests that the number of small circular indentions is the most important function to the user and the world. Whatever that function may be used for is unknown in the apparent design of the object, but as Prown says, the user and the world places meaning on objects. So whatever this object may be used for is determined by the user, and the number of small circular indentions on each side are given meaning by the user as well. So this object has no function in itself, but only by whatever the user dictates its function to be. After the invention of plastic in the twentieth century, nearly all dice were made in mass out of plastic in a factory using a mold, a conveyor belt and machinery. This die is made of wood, so I can assume that it was made in the 19th century. I can further assume that it was made in the second half of the 19th century, because during the Civil War, Sherman burned nearly all of Atlanta to the ground. If this die had survived the Civil War, it would have been a miracle. Also, all dice before the invention of plastic were made by hand, so I can assume that this die was made by hand as well. Whoever carved this die used precise measurements and painted the small circular indentions and added a protective finish to it as well.
When people are asked to think of a die, they associate it with words like “gambling”, “gaming”, “toss”, “checkers”, “dominos”, “roll”, “tumbling”, “game”, “throw”, “shoot”, “cast”, “cheat”, “cube”, and “box”. Of course people would associate dice with games and gambling, because dice are the main implements for these activities. “Cube” and “box” make sense too, because these are the shapes every one associates with dice. The “box” association reminds me of Pandora’s Box, as if the die held the power to unleash unimaginable chaos. What about “cast” and “cheat”? “Cast” is a seemingly simple word used to describe the act of throwing dice, but the word “cast” is also associated with magic, as in casting spells or divinations. A person can cheat at games, but they can also cheat in their lives.
The association between dice and divination goes back to the origin of dice. The history of dice is as old as the history of mankind. The first dice were astragali, the knucklebones of sheep and other animals. The oldest ones were found in the Middle East and they date back to 5000 BCE (Carr 1). Not only were astragali used to play games like knucklebones, a precursor to jacks, they were also used to tell the future. The throwing of dice to determine the will of the gods is known as cleromancy. In ancient Greece, astragali were found at the remains of an altar of Aphrodite (Reese). People would ask the gods questions about the future and then throw astragali or dice. The answer depended on which side they lay or the number facing upwards.
In the nomadic days of hunting and gathering, hunters would use a primitive form of dice to determine where to hunt and who would get the best cuts of meat. Eventually, people began to mark the sides and form the cubes that are recognized as dice today. In the 1920’s, British archaeologist Leonard Wooley discovered the Royal Game of Ur in Iraq, which contained intact game pieces, including four-sided pyramid-shaped dice. It dates back to 2600 BCE and is the oldest game board known to exist. Around this time, dice were first marked with the opposite sides adding up to 7.
Since 2600 BCE and earlier, people all over the world have enjoyed playing games, gambling and telling the future using dice. Even people who had no contact with each other used dice to play games. Archaeologists found small circles they believe ancient Mesoamericans used to play dice games. This would be the oldest game found in the Americas. They used dice made of sticks with markings on each side. As time progressed, dice became more complex. Archaeologists found a 20-sided die made of stone in a pyramid in Egypt they believe is dated to around 300 BCE. In China, dice games were so popular that in 1120 AD, they flattened them out and invented dominoes. Since there are 21 possible combinations when throwing two dice, they included 21 dominoes in each set. Although the Chinese discussed probability and chance in dice games and life, the first formalized system of probability was developed by the famous Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. In 1600 AD, the Grand Duke of Tuscany asked Galileo for help with a popular dice game. In order to determine the odds of winning, he developed probability theory, which changed the way scholars and scientists viewed the world. In earlier times, people thought that chance was completely determined by the gods. Once Galileo developed probability theory, people saw chance as a mathematical concept, not a spiritual or religious one. However, people still used dice to contact the gods, and they some still do today. In Tibet, Buddhist monks practice a form of divination called Mo. They ask Manjushri, the Boddhisatva of wisdom, questions about the future, health or travel, throw dice, and interpret the answers from books written by lamas that explain the dice combinations. The Internet has even made Mo divinations available for sale on the Internet.
The Internet has made all sorts of dice used to tell the future available for sale. One type of dice use astrology to tell the future. They are called astro-dice, and they are twelve-sided dice that represent the twelve houses, planets, and signs in astrology (the Sun, the Moon, and the North and South Nodes of the Moon are counted as planets). The user will focus on a question they want answered, cast the dice, and interpret the answer based on the results. People haven’t changed since they began to exist. They still entertain themselves out of boredom; more importantly, they seek to understand the truth of the world and thereby control it.
Dice provide just one way of doing that. Add up the opposite sides of dice and the sum is 7. This is the no ordinary coincidence. The number 7 is symbolically significance for dice. Dice are used to understand the world. Nachmanides of 12th century Spain said, “Seven is the number of the natural world. There are 7 days in the week, 7 notes on the musical scale and 7 directions (left, right, up, down, forward, back and center). ‘Seven’ – represented by the 7 days of Sukkot, is the world of nature.” According to the Bible, God created the world in 7 days, which make up the week. The seven directions make up the nature of physical space. Seven colors make up the rainbow and the color spectrum. The human body is made up of seven major parts: the head, the torso, the left arm, the right arm, the left leg, the right leg, and the sex organ. In Hinduism, there seven chakras in the body. In Islam, there are seven layers of earth, seven skies, seven heavens, seven hells, and seven doors to hell, and in both Islam and Christianity there are seven sins. The Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus are the seven celestial bodies visible to the naked eye from Earth. Physics has seven units to measure seven physical properties. In the Bible, the number is the perfect number. “The number 7 is the seeker, the thinker, the searcher of Truth.” (Decoz 1) The number seven shows up in all the mythology and folklore in the world. The number seven shows up in everything. People use dice to understand the world, so the fact that the opposite sides add up to seven is symbolically significant.
The number seven holds the key to understanding the world, something that people desperately seek. In order to understand the world, people feel as if they have more control over their own lives. People use dice not just to entertain themselves, but to take back control of their lives from a cruel, meaningless world. The world was a much more dangerous place during the hunter and gatherer age than it is now. Humanity was young and had much less understanding of the world than it does now. People feared for their lives because they did not have much control over whether they lived or died. That uncertainty led them to seek answers about their future. Those answers were found in the astragali and eventually dice. They became so popular and ubiquitous through all cultures and civilizations because people all over the world are uncertain about their futures, and they feel like they have no control over their lives. Dice are a reaction to the fear and uncertainty that is common through all human DNA. Dice represent a means of control, or at least the illusion of control, and that is why they are still popular today. How ironic it is that the same tool used to tell us about our lives is also used for games!
Works Cited
“Associations to the Word «Dice».” <i>- Word Associations Network</i>. N.p., n.dv. Web.
Carr, Karen. “History of Dice.” <i>When Were Dice Invented?</i> N.p., n.d. Web. 02
Reese, David S. “Faunal Remains from the Altar of Aphrodite Ourania, Athens.” <i>Hesperia</i> 58.1 (1989): 63. Web.
Decoz, Hans. “Number 7 Numerology.” Number 7 Numerology. N.p., n.d. Web.
“I. Seven In Time.” The Significance of The Number Seven. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2015