Archaeologists Found a Lost Roman Oracle—and Decoded the 56 Baffling Messages Inside

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• Archaeologists discovered a limestone pillar in southwest Turkey that held 56 messages from the gods.
• Citizens cast knucklebone lots that corresponded to one of the messages on the pillar to get answers about everyday issues.
• The answers were etched on the four-sided limestone pillar, a gift from an unknown member of the community.

Researchers translated a Roman-era limestone oracle found in 2024 in southwest Turkey, discovering it once contained 56 written answers, each corresponding to a throw of knucklebone dice. Think of it as an ancient “Magic 8-Ball.” The pillar followed the traditions of the region, giving those searching for answers from the gods a way to connect with just one toss of the dice.

In a new study backed by Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism and published in the journal Gephyra, researchers used the limestone pillar in Kibyra to study the traditions of receiving “divine messages through combinations of numerical values assigned to the different faces of a knucklebone.”

The practice was widespread across southern Asia Minor from roughly 120 C.E. to 210 C.E., during the Roman Imperial Period. A petitioner would step into the city’s agora and toss five astragali—irregularly shaped sheep or goat bones with four landable faces, valued 1, 3, 4, and 6, so that opposite faces added up to seven. Whether you threw one bone five times or all five at once, order didn’t matter: the result was one of exactly 56 possible combinations, and the four-sided limestone pillar had an answer waiting for every single one. The surviving Kibyra block measures four feet tall, with each face roughly 23 to 28 inches wide—and it’s only part of the original monument, which once carried a statue of Hermes on top.

In Kibyra, a wealthy benefactor donated the oracle so residents could skip the costly trip to another regional shrine. They were buying into something bigger: the practice had become, as the researchers put it, “a standardized, shared tradition.”

The researchers compared the 56 messages to other monuments from the region recorded in texts, finding key crossovers, albeit with local typos and mistakes introduced by the stonecutter.

Archaeologists found the block reused in the wall of a chapel, but it most likely once stood in the city’s agora, though the blocks that sat directly above and below it are still missing. A spot in the main square would have made the oracle accessible to locals and traveling traders alike. The stone also carries the name of the benefactor who donated it, now too worn to read.

Each of the oracle’s pieces of wisdom included attribution to a god, such as Zeus, Aphrodite, Cronus, and Poseidon. Hermes, though, was featured prominently, with the entire site dedicated to him.

The advice contained in the oracle’s 56 messages varies extensively. Some messages were simple, such as: “If there are three ones, one four, and the fifth is a three: Do not dare the deed you now intend.” There are examples encouraging people to press forward: “Four ones together and a single three, these things it says: Fleeing from hostility and evil, you will then attain your rewards. You will attain them and will grant this to you the grey-eyed goddess Athena. Your desire will be fulfilled exactly as your heart wishes, that which you have pursued.”

But there are plenty of other nuggets of godly direction. Some were pretty straightforward, like “You are thinking too much” and “If you wait the proper time will come and you will succeed in all.” Others like “Never act just like a lion giving blind birth” were, well, a bit less so. But sometimes that’s what you get with a roll of the dice.