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Here is an interesting video short on Roman dice towers. Roman dice towers—known in antiquity as the pyrgus or turricula—were gaming devices designed to ensure fair, random dice rolls. A dice tower was a small vertical structure with internal ramps. A player dropped dice in the top; they tumbled through the interior and emerged at the bottom in a randomized roll. This prevented sleight‑of‑hand, loaded throws, or palming—complaints that appear in Roman literature as early as the 1st century AD. Pictured above: The Vettweiss‑Froitzheim dice tower is a 4th‑century copper‑alloy Roman gaming tower about 22.5 cm tall, discovered in 1983 in a villa near Vettweiss in Germany, notable for its internal stepped ramps that tumbled dice onto three tiny bells, its openwork dolphin and geometric decoration, and its striking military inscription—PICTOS VICTOS / HOSTIS DELETA / LUDITE SECURI (“The Picts conquered, the enemy destroyed—play in safety”)—which strongly suggests it belonged to a Roman soldier on the northern frontier and served both as an anti‑cheating device and a piece of triumphal propaganda. https://www.classroomadventures.co.uk/post/the-roman-dice-tower

There have been numerous posts (see below) on the use of quicklime in Roman construction. Here is a very informative short video on the topic, explaining Roman concrete’s durability. Ancient Romans used quicklime (calcium oxide) because it was the essential reactive binder that made their mortars and concretes harden into durable, stone‑like masses. When quicklime was produced by heating limestone and then combined with water, it transformed into calcium hydroxide, which could then react with volcanic ash to form the calcium‑aluminum‑silicate hydrates that gave Roman concrete its strength and centuries-old longevity. Recent analyses of Pompeian construction sites show that Romans often used hot mixing, adding dry quicklime directly to ash and aggregate (the solid, inert material—such as stones, gravel, sand, crushed brick) before hydration. This produced intense localized heat and left behind lime clasts (the bright white, calcium‑rich chunks of partially reacted quicklime embedded throughout ancient Roman concrete) that later dissolved and recrystallized, effectively “self‑healing” cracks in the structure over centuries. These white clasts can be seen in the video. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pompeii-house-frozen-mid-renovation-reveals-secrets-of-roman-cement/ An earlier short video explaining the Pantheon’s durability: