What a wonderful rabbit hole to go down. My takeaways are it could possibly be used for knitting, but traditional spool knitting that the Grandma uses in the video doesn’t show up in history until the 1500s. If the Romans did use it for gloves then knitting has been around much longer than we have evidence of or they were using a different method with the dodecahedron.
I think I also read these were usually found with treasures and with minimal or no wear, so there isn’t any evidence they were used for anything.
The best suggested explanation IMO is that it’s a way for blacksmiths to demonstrate their skill.
“lol stupid scientists don’t know what knitting is” I would file under “actively anti-intellectual”.
Kinda like the little nib on top of old saw blades. It doesn’t really do anything, but if they can make that complex little nib, then they can probably make pretty decent sawblades too.
Iirc it was only found in northern areas. Can’t see demonstrations of skill being only there.
