This fascinating The Past article explains how researchers used artificial intelligence to decode the possible rules of an ancient Roman board game discovered in the Netherlands. The stone artifact, excavated from the Roman town of Coriovallum (modern Heerlen), had long puzzled archaeologists because it contained carved geometric lines but no written instructions or associated playing pieces. By combining archaeology with AI-based simulations, researchers were able to move beyond guesswork and reconstruct how the game may have been played.
The first step involved use-wear analysis. Researchers created a highly detailed 3D depth map of the limestone board using photogrammetry and microscopic imaging. This revealed that the surface was more worn along certain incised lines, strongly suggesting that hard objects—most likely gaming pieces—had repeatedly been dragged across them over time. These physical traces gave clues not only that it was a game board, but also how players may have moved their pieces.
The team then used an AI-driven simulation platform called Ludii, a system that contains one of the world’s largest databases of traditional board-game rules. By feeding the software constraints derived from the wear patterns—such as the likely number of playable positions and movement pathways—the AI ran multiple simulations of possible rule sets. The results narrowed the possibilities to nine plausible ways of play, with the best fit being a blocking game, where one player attempts to trap the opponent’s pieces rather than capture them directly.
The most likely reconstructed version suggests that one player began with four pieces on one side of the rectangular layout, while the opponent started with two pieces on the opposite side, and the goal was to immobilize the opponent. This discovery is especially significant because it indicates that blocking-style board games may have existed in Europe centuries earlier than previously known. More broadly, the study shows how AI can help historians and archaeologists rebuild fragments of human culture that time has erased, turning ancient artifacts into playable pieces of history once again.
