A tradition among Icelandic gamblers holds that Odin, the one-eyed god of consciousness and insight, was the inventor of dice.
The tumbling dice, though random and only predictable in the long run through the principles of statistical probability, produce a real and immediate outcome. When the dice are rolled, a state of temporary liminality is brought into being. As they roll, the outcome is imminent, yet it is not determined. Once the dice come to rest, the outcome is present and cannot be altered. The random immediately becomes determinant the moment the dice roll to a halt.
Whatever the result, it has a stark and immediate presence. And when given human significance, the points on the 12 faces of the pair of dice can bring fortune or ruin. When the dice are at rest, the success or failure of our predicament is at once apparent. Such is the nature of gambling and a metaphor for the nature of life.
And while dice are the pre-eminent gambling system, they may have originated in divination… the art of divining the future through the usage of throwing dice is known as claromancy, astrogalomancy, or sophomancy.
The word “die” is etymologically derived from the old French “a die” and from the Latin datum meaning that which is given, inferring an oracle or a stentum given by the gods. The word “die” is used generally to mean the cubic six-sided die that has always been its most common form. The plural of die is dice, but people often use the plural to describe a single die as a dice.
The numbers on the dice have their own names. Roman dice terminology was related to the 12-fold division of the world as expressed in weights and measures such as the 12-fold division of length into the 12 inches of the foot.