who might have been the first person to ever play the dice?
According to history and Sophocles’ writings, it was Palamedes – at the siege of Troy. Games of chance were very popular in antiquity. So much so that the Romans saw the need to bring some order into their practice by making a clear distinction between legal and illegal games.
One way to divine the future through these “games” was to watch the way knucklebones or astragalus (the talus bone, usually of a hoofed animal – as it falls in one of four positions), or by using dice.
This practice is known as astragalomancy.
It is possible to practice this divination art with one only six possible landing positions, but the throw is more complete if two dice are used, which makes twelve possible positions.
The query is usually written on a piece of ginger paper; for example what the future of a relationship might be or that of a business; then the paper is set on top of the table so that the side that was written on is facing down.
With this done, the dice are rolled and every number is noted as it comes out, as each number corresponds to a letter of the alphabet. Words and phrases are written by combining these letters. Some numbers correspond to several letters.
It is these phrases that are interpreted as answers to the written query.
The dice may be rolled in three ways: one by itself, two dice in consecutive order, or two dice at one time.Ç
The number to letter equivalences are as follows:
1 is letter a
2 is letter e
3 is letter i
4 is letter o
5 is letter u
6 is letters b, p, v, k, q
7 is letter c
8 is letters d, t
9 is letters f, s, x, z
10 is letters g, j
11 is letters l, m, n y
12 is letter r.
Letter h is not noted because the rules of chance care not about spelling. The letter F substitutes “ph”, and the letter k substitutes “ch”.
USA 
Free Services from Reading Tarot
Custom Search