Bronze astragalus

Description

Bronze astragalus. The astragalus is the central bone in the hock joint of the hind legs in mammals; it has been used for divination and gambling since prehistoric times. The bones of sheep, goats and cattle were particularly popular because they have four relatively flat surfaces. More elegant variations were also made of clay, glass, lead, bronze, silver and even gold. Games with these bones were well known in Europe up until the century before last. The denominations were as follows (from top left to bottom right): 3, 6, 4, and 1. As with a six-sided dice, the opposite totals always add up to 7. For most games, 4 to 5 astragali were used. Length of an astragalus 2.4 cm. The set consists of 5 bronze astragali.