this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2025
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Nat 20 (mander.xyz)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] milkisklim@lemmy.world 32 points 3 days ago (5 children)

This doesn't make sense.

Zeta isn't the last letter of the Greek alphabet, Omega is. And Upsilon is the 20th if they could only fit twenty letters on a twenty sided die.

[–] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 34 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I was able to find a source from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's website. it seems that it would've actually gone up to the 20th letter.

A number of polyhedral dice made in various materials have survived from the Hellenistic and Roman periods, usually from ancient Egypt when known. Several are in the Egyptian or Greek and Roman collections at the Museum. The icosahedron – 20-sided polyhedron – is frequent. Most often each face of the die is inscribed with a number in Greek and/or Latin up to the number of faces on the polyhedron.

[–] milkisklim@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Thanks for doing the work! I appreciate you

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

The Greek alphabet, which is the earliest known script to systematically include both consonants and vowels, is generally believed to have added vowels when it was adapted from the Phoenician script during the late 9th or early 8th century BCE.

Sorry, that paragraph is AI written but I was asking about something I know and too lazy to rewrite it myself.

The Phoenician alphabet which influenced the greek script had 22 letters afaik. Still doesn't match the sides but it's closer

[–] logicbomb@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Here's another thing that doesn't make sense about that post:

If you play Dungeons & Dragons, this object probably stops you in your tracks.

If you just play Dungeons & Dragons, then it looks like the hundreds or thousands of other d20s you've seen. Barely worth a look.

On the other hand, if you just like dice, like a lot of TTRPG people do, then it might catch your attention.

[–] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 22 points 3 days ago

The Venn diagram of people who play D&D and people who get excited about fancy D20s is practically a circle

[–] nightlily@leminal.space 2 points 2 days ago

If I saw this in The Met, which I’ve visited but this wasn’t on display at the time, it would have stopped me in my tracks even as a TTRPG player. It would feel very anachronistic amongst most of the displays.

[–] trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago

Except for the post title I didn't see any implication that zeta would be the highest value in the text.

[–] markovs_gun@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Yeah that immediately set off the bullshit detectors. Everything else in this post looks stupid but that sounded like utter crap

[–] Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works -2 points 3 days ago (3 children)

It’s likely all fake. Olympos is in Greece, not Turkey.

[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

Another comment in this thread has a link to a source confirming the die is real, doesn't mention the pillar tho

[–] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 3 points 3 days ago

Nah uhh i watched Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Olympos is in America.

Seriously though I keep getting pulled out of the show because it's so American when it's Greek mythology.