Our fascination with randomness runs deep. The earliest manufactured dice were found in Turkey from about 3000 BC, but ‘knucklebones’ – generally the astragalus bone from the ankle of a sheep – were used for gambling long before. And while the reasons may have changed, the quest for perfect random numbers continues.
The Bible describes lots being cast to discover the will of God. Dice, lots, coin-tossing and similar methods featured in divination or gambling or both in ancient Egypt, India and China. Playing cards later offered another method for fortune-telling or games of chance. All these methods are prone
