Yeah historians and archeologists generally have about a dozen ideas and wont discount or accept them till enough data has been collected. A prime example are those weird Roman dodecahedrons, where it could be everthing from a knitting instrument to a niche tool to something as simple as a nick nack. Though I think the knitting example is actually discounted because the type of knitting that was done with it was either not common enough to justify a specialized tool or not invented yet.
Anyways archeology is fun cause you can sometimes find new ways an artifact was used, like for example a helmet can be used as a helmet, a pisspot, or a bowl. This means we sometiems have no clue what an artifact was used for, unless they say fertility ritual then we know exactly what it was used for.
Didn’t they confirm it after 50 years? They had suspicions in different directions, including crotch armor?
Yeah this is the key point in all of this. You can speculate forever, until you can confirm it your confidence will be very low.
Yeah historians and archeologists generally have about a dozen ideas and wont discount or accept them till enough data has been collected. A prime example are those weird Roman dodecahedrons, where it could be everthing from a knitting instrument to a niche tool to something as simple as a nick nack. Though I think the knitting example is actually discounted because the type of knitting that was done with it was either not common enough to justify a specialized tool or not invented yet.
Anyways archeology is fun cause you can sometimes find new ways an artifact was used, like for example a helmet can be used as a helmet, a pisspot, or a bowl. This means we sometiems have no clue what an artifact was used for, unless they say fertility ritual then we know exactly what it was used for.