F Fasanelli has also remarked that they seem to be in the
Ashmolean.
If this complete set of "Platonic solids" composed of
demi-spheres are paleolithic and from the area of Scotland, this
strikes me as of extraordinary interest, being a complete set and all.
They are presumably carved from stone (and not molded from clay?). It
seems to me that carving from stone would be much more difficult to do
when composed of demispheres instead of planar polyhedra (it's a
question of whether they first imagined the planarpolyhedra, or they
more abstractly imagined the symmetries and realized them in forms they
were otherwise more familiar with?). Presumably done without the help
of drawings, though I don't imagine drawings would've been of much help
(because of the demisphere construction), or from models more
appropriate to plane-surfaced polyhedra made by using something
paper/leather/clothlike, or out of straws, or. . .? One wonders
indeed how the Egyptians went about /discovering/"designing" and
sculpting their polyhedral versions. Maybe the clue is in how they
designed/modelled pyramids?
In any case, it seems to me that the interesting question might
be whether one could argue that those "Scots" somehow first abstractly
imagined the symmetries and then realized them in the demisphere
construction, their imagination going more to curves than to planes?
Does this suggest an abstract imagination (which is to say a sort of
Platonic imagination) preeding the visual/tactile imagination?
Of course none of this is much worth considering until we know
the age and origin of those things.
Robert Tragesser
424 Old Clinton Road
West(running)brook, Conn. 06498 USA
(860)399-6305
RTragesser@compuserve.com