A 1,700-Year-Old Board Game Is Being Played Again Thanks to 3D Scanning and Printing

A stone board used nearly two millennia ago by the inhabitants of Roman Britain has been given a new lease on life thanks to 3D technology. The project was developed by researchers at Newcastle University in collaboration with the Vindolanda Charitable Trust.

The original board was discovered in 2019 during excavations at Vindolanda, one of the most important archaeological sites in northern England. Experts identified the artifact as a Ludus Latrunculorum board, a strategic two-player game considered the most popular in Roman Britain.

Original excavated board.

Although the exact rules of the game have been lost over time, historians believe that its mechanics bore similarities to modern strategy games, in which players had to surround and capture their opponent’s pieces. Various literary references by Roman authors and archaeological findings have made it possible to partially reconstruct how the game worked.