Yeah, makes total sense that rich aristocrats would have common knitting tools buried with them with other valuables.

“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.”

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