The Oracle Cabinet

About Astragalus

The faces, casting method, historical patterns, and sources.

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The four faces

The bone has two narrow faces and two broad faces. Each pair has an outward curve (convex) and an inward hollow (concave).

1

Chion

Narrow · Convex

Also called monos (single).
3

Hyption

Broad · Concave

4

Pranes

Broad · Convex

6

Koon

Narrow · Concave

Also called exetis (sixes).

Generated specimen illustrations based on the supplied face drawings; individual bones vary in shape.

From question to pattern

How to cast

  1. Settle on one clear question.
  2. Cast five astragalus bones together, or cast one bone five times.
  3. Record each upward-facing value: 1, 3, 4, or 6.
  4. Sort the five values from smallest to largest and add them.
  5. Find the exact five-value combination in the chosen oracle table. Several patterns share a total.

Method adapted in brief from the publisher’s casting excerpt. Its coin alternative uses three coins per throw, repeated five times; the excerpt does not show the coin-to-value diagram.

A worked example

One · Three · Three · Four · Six

1
3
3
4
6

1 + 3 + 3 + 4 + 6 = 17

The pattern is 13346, whichever order the bones land in. The Kremna inscription names it Hermes the Savior.

There are four patterns totaling 17: 11366, 13346, 14444, and 33344. Each has its own entry. The sum helps locate a group; the full combination identifies the answer.

The historical table

This edition follows Kremna’s deity names and pattern headings. The English summaries describe the surviving Greek verses; they are not literal translations or guaranteed predictions.

Browse all 56 patterns

Choose any pattern to view its bones, reading, and inscription reference.

Kremna patterns, ordered by total
PatternTotalDeity
Sources and editorial notes

Primary source: the Greek dice-oracle inscription from Kremna, IK Central Pisidia 5, in the Packard Humanities Institute database. The scholarly edition is G. H. R. Horsley and S. Mitchell, The Inscriptions of Central Pisidia (2000), no. 5. Each result identifies its inscription lines.

The text contains damaged and editorially restored passages. Especially fragmentary entries are marked in their results. For the damaged Fates entry (11114), the summary also uses the fuller parallel at Termessos, TAM III,1 34, A.14–18.

Two handout errors are resolved by Kremna’s headings: 11344 is the Seasons (ααγδδ, line 66); 13346 is Hermes the Savior (αϛγγδ, line 131). The sums are calculated from the five values.

Local variants remain distinct. For 33336, Kremna prints Good Kronos while Termessos has Good Chronos (Time). The two inscriptions also reverse the Men and Mother of the Gods names at total 25. This lookup consistently uses Kremna. Your book’s Artemis of the Fields label belongs to a different presentation and is not used for the reading.

Further scholarship: Fritz Graf, “Rolling the Dice for an Answer”, in Mantikê (2005), pp. 51–97; and Franz Heinevetter’s 1912 inscription study. The English summaries here were written from the ancient Greek; modern published translations are not reproduced.