Unusual medieval dice found in Bergen
The rare dice was found by archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) on one of the many excavations currently taking place in the medieval VÃ¥gsbunnen district in Bergen, Norway.
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Coffer lowered as archaeologists reach cultural level in VÃ¥gsbunnen dig [Credit: NIKU] |
The dice from VÃ¥gsbunnen has two fives and two fours, instead of the numbers one and two. It is therefore very likely that this has been used to cheat in games.
"The dice were found close to a wooden street that dates back to the 1400s. So when looking at the context and the dice design, there is just as much chance that someone has got rid of it, as they have lost it," says Per Christian Underhaug who is the project manager for the excavations in Bergen.
"This part of Bergen was a densely populated district with several inns and pubs, and it is not unlikely that there were lots of games being played in them," says Underhaug.
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The cheating dice with two fives and two fours[Credit: Angela Weigand, University of Bergen] |
According to the 1276 city law, the King’s Ombudsmen could confiscate money on the table, and in addition, all participants had to pay a fine of half a mark (about 107 grams of silver).
However, there is no reason to believe that gambling was not widespread. Rekkavik speculates on how a possible cheater was revealed: "It’s exciting to imagine this dice’s last game – was the cheater revealed? If so, how was the reaction of the participants? Was there a joyful team among friends where such violations could be humorously compensated or were there a violent clash of angry betters? What happened to the dice? Was it perhaps thrown away by the nervous cheater eager to get rid of evidence? Or was it angrily thrown by an opponent, to where it ended up being found over 600 years later?"
The excavations in Bergen are a series of small and large surveys in VÃ¥gsbunnen, one of the city’s medieval districts. The excavations are carried out by the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) on behalf of the Directorate for Cultural Heritage.
Source: Norsk institutt for kulturminneforskning [April 12, 2018]
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