Random theory. Those dodecehedrons hold tent poles in place.
Take one bronze dodecehedron, and 6 straight sticks, and some string and canvas.
Each pole goes through one hole and out the opposite hole, and then stops. This leaves an umbrela like structure. 1 pole going straight down, the other 5 going diagonally down.
The nodules are to tie rope around. Possibly to tie the canvas to.
That sounds like a very expensive & large doodad for a simple tent where lashing would work fine. Even assuming it’d work (wouldn’t that just leave the poles wiggling around inside?), that would also seem to not satisfy the requirement to explain why it’s found in many sites (not just military encampments) such as buried in coin hoards, why the holes are of apparently random and inconsistent sizes, or to explain why all of them rigorously go to the trouble of adding on many expensive nodules most of which would be unused (and I think it would be predictable which ones you would not be using for a tent and you could simply give it an orientation). There’s also 1 found icosahedron which has no holes at all, which is bad news for any glove-knitting, surveying, or tent-poling theory, but is not an issue for other theories like fortune-telling or game-playing.
Random theory. Those dodecehedrons hold tent poles in place.
Take one bronze dodecehedron, and 6 straight sticks, and some string and canvas.
Each pole goes through one hole and out the opposite hole, and then stops. This leaves an umbrela like structure. 1 pole going straight down, the other 5 going diagonally down.
The nodules are to tie rope around. Possibly to tie the canvas to.
That sounds like a very expensive & large doodad for a simple tent where lashing would work fine. Even assuming it’d work (wouldn’t that just leave the poles wiggling around inside?), that would also seem to not satisfy the requirement to explain why it’s found in many sites (not just military encampments) such as buried in coin hoards, why the holes are of apparently random and inconsistent sizes, or to explain why all of them rigorously go to the trouble of adding on many expensive nodules most of which would be unused (and I think it would be predictable which ones you would not be using for a tent and you could simply give it an orientation). There’s also 1 found icosahedron which has no holes at all, which is bad news for any glove-knitting, surveying, or tent-poling theory, but is not an issue for other theories like fortune-telling or game-playing.