Ptolemaic D20

[Duncan Head]

See http://nerdist.com/behold-the-worlds-oldest-known-d20/ - it's in the Metropolitan Museum of Art , NY. Now what games did they play with this in Hellenistic Egypt?

The Etruscans, of course, used D6 - http://etruscanwordstudies.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-etruscan-dice.html. Is this symptomatic of differences between the Italian and Hellenistic approaches to wargaming?

[Sharur]

And it's not the only one. See the "related objects" entry under the die on this Metropolitan Museum of Art webpage. The fact they're inscribed with Greek characters could suggest they were intended for use in playing the Ancient Greek version of Boggle (Wikipedia link) 

Or possibly some form of divination.

Of course, the D4, D6, D8, D12 and D20 have a long, proud tradition of existence, given they're the only five Platonic solids, known from Greek antiquity, and possibly even back to the Scottish neolithic (carved stone balls; both Wikipedia links).

Making the D10 a young interloping whippersnapper, by contrast, apparently 

[Erpingham]

Making the D10 a young interloping whippersnapper, by contrast, apparently 

I recall coming back to the school wargaming society from a wargames show in about 1972 raving about these new percentage dice.  My maths teacher said they couldn't be ten sided dice, they had to be 20 sided with the numbers on twice.  To prove his point, he went away and made one from card for us to use - very decent of him, I still think - and that was the first "percentage dice" we got to use for microtanks.

[Duncan Head]

And now it appears that the ancient Chinese had fourteen-sided dice!

http://www.livescience.com/52808-ancient-board-game-found-in-china-tomb.html
http://www.livescience.com/52806-tomb-ancient-board-game-photos.html with an exploded view of the dice.