September 8, 2025 • 12 mins
Does this acrobatic astragalos (an ancient kind of dice) have what it takes to win the big game? Learn about the twists and turns of ancient gameplay and how sheep knucklebones aren’t so different from modern dice.
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For a listening guide, a coloring sheet, images, and more, visit getty.edu/podcasts/if-objects-could-talk/.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcer (00:00):
This is a Getty Podcast.
Host (00:06):
Let the good times roll, because today we hear
from an ancient kind of dice!
Welcome to If Objects CouldTalk, a podcast where art
and artifacts get to leavethe museum vault and share
their side of the story.
Thanks for joining us as webring objects into the light!
(00:27):
What kinds of gamesdo you like to play?
Any favorite board games?
Maybe something with dice?
Kids just like you have beenplaying games for, well, for as
long as there have been kids!
In ancient times, a lot of thosegames were played with dice,
just like many modern games.
(00:49):
But Roman kids used aspecial type of die they
called an astragalos, whichmeans knucklebones—because
they were made from theknucklebones of sheep or pigs!
Today’s guest is a specialglass astragalos and for the
last 2000 years, since hewas made, this acrobatic die
has been a champion of fun.
(01:11):
Looks like he’s ready toshow us his best moves!
Let’s make some room!
Astragalos the Acrobat (01:16):
Woohoo!
Are you ready for this?
Back handspring.
Wow!
Front flip.
And— dun dun dun dun! —cartwheel!
Wee!
Phew...Gotta stay limber withall the twists and turns I do!
Did that look cool?
Child (01:36):
No one can see you.
Astragalos (01:38):
Oh, what?
Child (01:39):
It’s a podcast!
Astragalos (01:41):
A podcast?
Oh, yeah!
I forgot you can’t see me.
Sorry.
Well...It DID look cool!
Can you picture it?
Let me set the scene.
Imagine a small, clear-ish glassobject about as long as a penny.
(02:02):
You probably have dice thatare perfect cubes, but I’m more
rectangular, with two shortfaces and four long faces.
And all of my sides are unique!
Of my four long faces, twoare wider and two are slimmer.
One of my wide sides curvesout and the other curves in.
(02:23):
One of my two skinnysides curves in, too,
but then my other skinnyside is mostly flat!
Is that descriptionmaking your mind your
mind do somersaults yet?
I know it’s kind of strangesounding, to imagine me
with so many sides andall of them different.
But since each of my facesis so different from the
others, people didn’t needto mark little dots on each
(02:45):
one to give it a number.
They just knew which shapedside meant which number.
I’m a unique type of astragalos.
Most are made from sheepor goat knucklebones.
Which makes sensebecause “astragalos”
means “knucklebone!”
That’s right—kids wereusing bones in their games!
(03:05):
But I’m extra special becauseI’m made of molded glass
to look like knucklebones.
Other prized typesof knucklebones have
been made from metals,marble, wood, terracotta,
and even precious gems.
I’m
more than just dice.
There are lots of gamesyou play with knucklebones!
(03:26):
Like have you ever grabbed awaste paper basket and tried
to shoot some hoops with aballed up piece of paper?
Well, next time you can trytossing your knucklebones
into the opening of a jarlike Ancient Roman kids!
Or let’s play marbles!
But instead of seeing if you canknock your opponent’s marbles
(03:47):
out of the ring, see if you canknock out their knucklebones!
And!
If you’ve got a real acrobat,such as yours truly, you can
toss your knucklebones up in theair and try to catch us on the
back of your hands, like jacks!
That’s my favorite.
I love twisting andturning in the air.
(04:08):
Pretty soon I’ll nail “TheBiles,” like Simone! I’ve
only been practicing for,like, two thousand years.
All the best games can beplayed with knucklebones!
But we have one more skill,too: predicting the future.
I’m actually very goodat predicting the future.
(04:29):
Well, at predicting
certain things.
I’ll show you!
Can you find a six-sideddie to look at?
Maybe you’ve got onein a Parcheesi box
or a game of Yahtzee.
I bet you that no matterwhat side you look at, I
can predict the number ofdots on the opposite side!
Are you ready?
(04:49):
Here goes!
Are you looking at theside with three dots?
Well, then the oppositeside will have…four dots!
How about the sidewith five dots?
Then the oppositeside has to be...two!
And that just leaves sixand one as the final pair.
(05:12):
Thank you, thank you.
Want to know the trick?
It’s because the oppositesides of the dice
always add up to seven!
And it’s the same when youplay with knucklebones.
Each side has a numericvalue, and opposite
sides add up to seven.
There is one big differencebetween how you play with
me and modern dice though.
(05:32):
With me, it’s not the sidethat’s face up that matters,
it’s the one touching the table!
Try using that rulethe next time things
go south in Monopoly.
Oh, I’ve competed inthousands of great games.
All of them fun, butthere’s one in particular
that I’ll always remember.
(05:54):
A real nail-biter,where everything came
down to the final toss.
It all started with thiskid named Nikandros,
who lived in the Romanempire with his family.
And I mean, his whole family.
Not just his mom and dadand siblings, but also
his grandmother and someaunts and uncles, and a
(06:17):
whole crew of cousins.
Anyway, every year, in thelate summer, when bees had
filled their hives to thebrim, honey was harvested.
And each year during honeyharvest season, Nikandros’
grandmother would makethe most delicious pancake
drizzled in golden honey.
(06:39):
Mmmh!
But there was a catch.
She only made one honeycake.
To decide who got it, thecousins would hold an epic
knucklebones tournament.
Talk about going for gold!
Three years in a row,Nikandros’s big bully
of a cousin Straton won.
And he ate the honeycake infront of everyone, without
(07:03):
sharing a single bite!
Nikandros was determined thatthis was going to be his year,
so he worked on his skills allsummer, but as the tournament
approached, he still wasn’tsure if he could beat Straton.
So,
Nikandros asked his oldestcousin, Cassandra, for help.
(07:24):
Cassandra was almost allgrown up and didn’t play
in the cousins’ tournamentanymore, but back in the day,
ahhh, she’d been a champion.
When Nikandros came to herfor help, she pulled out her
own very special set of luckyknucklebones for him to borrow.
Four beautiful pieces, allmade of glass, including,
(07:45):
you guessed it, me!
I couldn’t wait toget back in the ring!
Is there anything more funthan twisting and turning
and jumping in the air onthe last days of summer?
At first, I was sure thiswas going to be a cinch.
But Straton was good.
(08:08):
Very good.
Maybe even...too good.
Let me back up for a second andexplain the rules of the game.
In the cousins’ tournament,the goal was to throw your
four knucklebones so thateach one landed on a different
side—this was called a “VenusThrow.” So Nikandros and
(08:34):
Straton both made it to thefinal round when Nikandros
noticed something...suspicious.
Even a good player has somebad throws, but Straton
was throwing the exact samehand over and over and over!
When Nikandros pointed thisout, Straton said he was
just being a sore loser.
(08:56):
It took a lot of courage, butNikandros stood his ground.
He called Cassandra over toinspect Straton’s knucklebones.
She looked closely...andspotted it.
Tiny holes drilled intothe bone, with little
flakes of metal inside.
The added weight of the metalcaused the knucklebones to
(09:17):
land the same way every time.
Straton had only beenwinning because Straton
had been cheating!
Uch,
cheating.
It’s a tale as old as playing.
And there’s nothing I hate more!
I mean, I know that life isn’tfair, but shouldn’t games be?
You’d think a guy like thatwould get kicked out of
(09:39):
the tournament, but theirgrandmother just said, “it
was only a game” and “stay ofthe kitchen, we’re busy.” Tch!
Only a game!
Now, more than ever, I wantedto help Nikandros beat Straton.
I wanted it so badly I wasstarting to get really nervous.
(10:00):
I hoped I wouldn’t geta case of the twisties!
For the final round ofthe tournament, Straton
was forced to hand overhis weighted knucklebones
and play with a fair set.
In their first three throws,both Straton and Nikandros
had flipped their knucklebonesthree different ways.
Then Straton flubbedthe final toss!
(10:22):
To win, Nikandros needed toland a knucklebone on the
side that curves out, thehardest side to get stable.
When Nikandros picked me up,I could feel his hand shaking.
Or maybe it was me, trembling.
He took a deep breath.
He tossed me into the air.
(10:42):
I twisted and turnedunder the open
sky and...
I stuck the landing like a pro!
The crowd went wild!
Nikandros won—the gameand the honeycake.
He split the cake withCassandra, in thanks,
who suggested they sharewith all the cousins.
(11:05):
Victory had nevertasted so sweet.
You just don’t getgames like that anymore.
Unless, maybe youwant to play sometime?
Host (11:17):
I
hope you enjoyed learning aboutRoman games and knucklebones.
Join us next time when anowl flies off a coin and into
the studio to speak with us.
To see photographs of theastragalos and learn the
(11:38):
rules to some Roman games,visit our website at Getty
dot edu slash podcasts.
This episode was writtenby Claire Hupy and
produced by Zoe Goldman.
Lara Woodhull voicedthe astragalos.
Theme music, mixing and sounddesign by Alexandra Kalinowski.
Christopher Sprinkleis executive producer.
(12:01):
Special thanks to curatorsKen Lapatin, Judith Barr,
and Hana Sugioka as wellas John and Amos McCue.
Catch you next time!
This is a Getty Podcast.
Host (00:06):
Let the good times roll, because today we hear
from an ancient kind of dice!
Welcome to If Objects CouldTalk, a podcast where art
and artifacts get to leavethe museum vault and share
their side of the story.
Thanks for joining us as webring objects into the light!
(00:27):
What kinds of gamesdo you like to play?
Any favorite board games?
Maybe something with dice?
Kids just like you have beenplaying games for, well, for as
long as there have been kids!
In ancient times, a lot of thosegames were played with dice,
just like many modern games.
(00:49):
But Roman kids used aspecial type of die they
called an astragalos, whichmeans knucklebones—because
they were made from theknucklebones of sheep or pigs!
Today’s guest is a specialglass astragalos and for the
last 2000 years, since hewas made, this acrobatic die
has been a champion of fun.
(01:11):
Looks like he’s ready toshow us his best moves!
Let’s make some room!
Astragalos the Acrobat (01:16):
Woohoo!
Are you ready for this?
Back handspring.
Wow!
Front flip.
And— dun dun dun dun! —cartwheel!
Wee!
Phew...Gotta stay limber withall the twists and turns I do!
Did that look cool?
Child (01:36):
No one can see you.
Astragalos (01:38):
Oh, what?
Child (01:39):
It’s a podcast!
Astragalos (01:41):
A podcast?
Oh, yeah!
I forgot you can’t see me.
Sorry.
Well...It DID look cool!
Can you picture it?
Let me set the scene.
Imagine a small, clear-ish glassobject about as long as a penny.
(02:02):
You probably have dice thatare perfect cubes, but I’m more
rectangular, with two shortfaces and four long faces.
And all of my sides are unique!
Of my four long faces, twoare wider and two are slimmer.
One of my wide sides curvesout and the other curves in.
(02:23):
One of my two skinnysides curves in, too,
but then my other skinnyside is mostly flat!
Is that descriptionmaking your mind your
mind do somersaults yet?
I know it’s kind of strangesounding, to imagine me
with so many sides andall of them different.
But since each of my facesis so different from the
others, people didn’t needto mark little dots on each
(02:45):
one to give it a number.
They just knew which shapedside meant which number.
I’m a unique type of astragalos.
Most are made from sheepor goat knucklebones.
Which makes sensebecause “astragalos”
means “knucklebone!”
That’s right—kids wereusing bones in their games!
(03:05):
But I’m extra special becauseI’m made of molded glass
to look like knucklebones.
Other prized typesof knucklebones have
been made from metals,marble, wood, terracotta,
and even precious gems.
I’m
more than just dice.
There are lots of gamesyou play with knucklebones!
(03:26):
Like have you ever grabbed awaste paper basket and tried
to shoot some hoops with aballed up piece of paper?
Well, next time you can trytossing your knucklebones
into the opening of a jarlike Ancient Roman kids!
Or let’s play marbles!
But instead of seeing if you canknock your opponent’s marbles
(03:47):
out of the ring, see if you canknock out their knucklebones!
And!
If you’ve got a real acrobat,such as yours truly, you can
toss your knucklebones up in theair and try to catch us on the
back of your hands, like jacks!
That’s my favorite.
I love twisting andturning in the air.
(04:08):
Pretty soon I’ll nail “TheBiles,” like Simone! I’ve
only been practicing for,like, two thousand years.
All the best games can beplayed with knucklebones!
But we have one more skill,too: predicting the future.
I’m actually very goodat predicting the future.
(04:29):
Well, at predicting
certain things.
I’ll show you!
Can you find a six-sideddie to look at?
Maybe you’ve got onein a Parcheesi box
or a game of Yahtzee.
I bet you that no matterwhat side you look at, I
can predict the number ofdots on the opposite side!
Are you ready?
(04:49):
Here goes!
Are you looking at theside with three dots?
Well, then the oppositeside will have…four dots!
How about the sidewith five dots?
Then the oppositeside has to be...two!
And that just leaves sixand one as the final pair.
(05:12):
Thank you, thank you.
Want to know the trick?
It’s because the oppositesides of the dice
always add up to seven!
And it’s the same when youplay with knucklebones.
Each side has a numericvalue, and opposite
sides add up to seven.
There is one big differencebetween how you play with
me and modern dice though.
(05:32):
With me, it’s not the sidethat’s face up that matters,
it’s the one touching the table!
Try using that rulethe next time things
go south in Monopoly.
Oh, I’ve competed inthousands of great games.
All of them fun, butthere’s one in particular
that I’ll always remember.
(05:54):
A real nail-biter,where everything came
down to the final toss.
It all started with thiskid named Nikandros,
who lived in the Romanempire with his family.
And I mean, his whole family.
Not just his mom and dadand siblings, but also
his grandmother and someaunts and uncles, and a
(06:17):
whole crew of cousins.
Anyway, every year, in thelate summer, when bees had
filled their hives to thebrim, honey was harvested.
And each year during honeyharvest season, Nikandros’
grandmother would makethe most delicious pancake
drizzled in golden honey.
(06:39):
Mmmh!
But there was a catch.
She only made one honeycake.
To decide who got it, thecousins would hold an epic
knucklebones tournament.
Talk about going for gold!
Three years in a row,Nikandros’s big bully
of a cousin Straton won.
And he ate the honeycake infront of everyone, without
(07:03):
sharing a single bite!
Nikandros was determined thatthis was going to be his year,
so he worked on his skills allsummer, but as the tournament
approached, he still wasn’tsure if he could beat Straton.
So,
Nikandros asked his oldestcousin, Cassandra, for help.
(07:24):
Cassandra was almost allgrown up and didn’t play
in the cousins’ tournamentanymore, but back in the day,
ahhh, she’d been a champion.
When Nikandros came to herfor help, she pulled out her
own very special set of luckyknucklebones for him to borrow.
Four beautiful pieces, allmade of glass, including,
(07:45):
you guessed it, me!
I couldn’t wait toget back in the ring!
Is there anything more funthan twisting and turning
and jumping in the air onthe last days of summer?
At first, I was sure thiswas going to be a cinch.
But Straton was good.
(08:08):
Very good.
Maybe even...too good.
Let me back up for a second andexplain the rules of the game.
In the cousins’ tournament,the goal was to throw your
four knucklebones so thateach one landed on a different
side—this was called a “VenusThrow.” So Nikandros and
(08:34):
Straton both made it to thefinal round when Nikandros
noticed something...suspicious.
Even a good player has somebad throws, but Straton
was throwing the exact samehand over and over and over!
When Nikandros pointed thisout, Straton said he was
just being a sore loser.
(08:56):
It took a lot of courage, butNikandros stood his ground.
He called Cassandra over toinspect Straton’s knucklebones.
She looked closely...andspotted it.
Tiny holes drilled intothe bone, with little
flakes of metal inside.
The added weight of the metalcaused the knucklebones to
(09:17):
land the same way every time.
Straton had only beenwinning because Straton
had been cheating!
Uch,
cheating.
It’s a tale as old as playing.
And there’s nothing I hate more!
I mean, I know that life isn’tfair, but shouldn’t games be?
You’d think a guy like thatwould get kicked out of
(09:39):
the tournament, but theirgrandmother just said, “it
was only a game” and “stay ofthe kitchen, we’re busy.” Tch!
Only a game!
Now, more than ever, I wantedto help Nikandros beat Straton.
I wanted it so badly I wasstarting to get really nervous.
(10:00):
I hoped I wouldn’t geta case of the twisties!
For the final round ofthe tournament, Straton
was forced to hand overhis weighted knucklebones
and play with a fair set.
In their first three throws,both Straton and Nikandros
had flipped their knucklebonesthree different ways.
Then Straton flubbedthe final toss!
(10:22):
To win, Nikandros needed toland a knucklebone on the
side that curves out, thehardest side to get stable.
When Nikandros picked me up,I could feel his hand shaking.
Or maybe it was me, trembling.
He took a deep breath.
He tossed me into the air.
(10:42):
I twisted and turnedunder the open
sky and...
I stuck the landing like a pro!
The crowd went wild!
Nikandros won—the gameand the honeycake.
He split the cake withCassandra, in thanks,
who suggested they sharewith all the cousins.
(11:05):
Victory had nevertasted so sweet.
You just don’t getgames like that anymore.
Unless, maybe youwant to play sometime?
Host (11:17):
I
hope you enjoyed learning aboutRoman games and knucklebones.
Join us next time when anowl flies off a coin and into
the studio to speak with us.
To see photographs of theastragalos and learn the
(11:38):
rules to some Roman games,visit our website at Getty
dot edu slash podcasts.
This episode was writtenby Claire Hupy and
produced by Zoe Goldman.
Lara Woodhull voicedthe astragalos.
Theme music, mixing and sounddesign by Alexandra Kalinowski.
Christopher Sprinkleis executive producer.
(12:01):
Special thanks to curatorsKen Lapatin, Judith Barr,
and Hana Sugioka as wellas John and Amos McCue.
Catch you next time!
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