A ROMAN ANTHROPORMORPHIC SOLID SILVER DICE IN THE FORM OF A SQUATTING FEMALE

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A ROMAN SOLID SILVER ANTHROPOMORPHIC DIE IN THE FORM OF A SQUATTING FEMALE FIGURE, CIRCA 1ST-3RD CENTURY A.D. Cast in solid silver as a squatting nude female, the figure raises both arms behind the head in a symmetrical posture, elbows splayed outward to form the upper corners of the object. The knees are drawn up and parted, with the feet resting flat and the buttocks lowered close to the ground, producing a broadly cubic silhouette in which the six visible surfaces of the compressed body function as the faces of a die. The head is frontal, the face rendered with heavy-lidded almond eyes, a straight nose and a small closed mouth, the hair drawn back beneath a fluted or radiating headdress that crowns the crown of the head. The breasts are modelled in low rounded relief, the abdomen softly swelling above the pudenda, and the limbs summarily but confidently worked. The surface retains a warm patina of cuprous and silver-sulphide tones, with areas of greenish accretion in the recesses and pale silver showing on the raised planes where the metal has been rubbed smooth through handling. The pose, arms folded behind the head and legs drawn up in a full squat, is a deliberate compositional device that turns the human body into a geometric solid. Each of the enclosed voids between the limbs, together with the flat planes of the back, the seat, the crown and the front of the torso, produces a countable face, so that the object can be cast or set down like a knucklebone or tessera. Small anthropomorphic gaming pieces and dice of this kind belong to the wider Roman material culture of play and divination, in which the boundary between amusement, wager and lot-casting was porous. Squatting or crouching nudes carry additional associations with fertility and with apotropaic or erotic charm, and comparable miniature figures in bronze and silver were carried as personal amulets as well as used in games of chance. The choice of solid silver is significant. Roman gaming equipment survives most commonly in bone, ivory, glass and bronze; silver examples belong to a luxury register of tabletop objects associated with the wealthier households of the early and middle Empire, where dining, drinking and gaming furniture was often executed in precious metal. The weight of nineteen grams in so compact a piece confirms a solid rather than hollow casting, consistent with a small but materially costly commission. The finishing, chased detail at the headdress and face, smoothed planes elsewhere, points to a workshop accustomed to producing miniature figural silver for private use rather than architectural or votive contexts. This die exemplifies the Roman taste for transforming utilitarian objects of leisure into figural sculpture in miniature, where the geometry required by function is met by a body compressed into cubic form. Its interest lies precisely in that conceit: a gaming piece that is also a small anthropomorphic image, executed in a metal that raised an everyday amusement into the register of luxury tableware. Dimensions: Height: 2.5 cm

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