A ROMAN STONE GAME BOARD:

 

Roman stone game board. Internet photograph, public domain.

I have published a number of columns in the past on RockArtBlog about game boards in rock art (see the cloud index at the bottom). This one is about an example attributed to the Romans from between seventeen and fifteen hundred years ago that was found in the Netherlands.

“A limestone object recovered from the Roman settlement of Coriovallum, now Heerlen in the Netherlands, has provided rare evidence for how people played board games during the Roman period. The object, preserved in Het Romeins Museum, carries a pattern of incised lines on a flattened surface. Archeologists long suspected a link to play, yet no known Roman or earlier European game matches the design.” (Radley 2026) This presented researchers with a fascinating mystery. Can they find out what game was played on an unfamiliar board from that long ago? “Researchers used AI to reconstruct the rules of a board game carved into a stone found in the Dutch city of Heerlen. The team concludes that this type of game was played several centuries earlier than previously assumed.” (Phys.org 2026)

“Coriovallum was a Roman town in the province of Germania Inferior founded under the reign of emperor Augustus (27 BC–AD 14) and inhabited until the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476. The remains of Coriovallum lie beneath present day Heerlen.” (Crist 2026:112)

The game board with pieces in place. Photograph from Universiteit Leiden. 

Although the artifact’s provenance, the details of its discovery have been lost it is believed to have been excavated in Heerlen during the late 19^th or early 20^th centuries. “Contextual dating, based on the typical archeological strata of Heerlen, places the creation and used of this board between 1,700 and 1,500 years ago.” (Carvajal 2026)

The flattened stone board has a pattern of lines engraved into the upper surface. “The engraving consists of a rectangle defined by a perimeter groove within which four diagonal lines intersect to form a kind of X shape, accompanied by a single straight horizontal line at one end of the rectangle, and apparently simple but enigmatic configuration.” (Carvajal 2026) This is really not how I would describe the design of the lines on the surface, but interestingly, instead of a series of similar boxes, pits or outlines the design essentially consists of a large rectangle divided up into differing sized rectangular and triangular spaces. The design is symmetrical with both ends the same.

Roman game pieces from Coriovallum. Image from Het Romeins Museum.

These questions particularly interested an archeologist named Walter Crist. “Archeologist Walter Crist encountered the stone in 2020 in the collection of the Thermenmuseum – which has since been renamed the Roman Museum. The worked limestone slab, measuring 21 by 14.5 centimeters, was found in the ground in Heerlen in the late 19^th or early 20^th century. Heerlen was once the important Roman settlement of Coriovallum. Crist specializes in ancient games and was immediately intrigued.” (Phys.org 2026)

Crist assumed that playing a game on this board would leave microscopic wear marks that might point to directions of movement of pieces. “Crist examined the stone under a microscope. ‘Wear was visible on the lines of the stone, exactly at the places where you would slide your playing piece.’ He enlisted the help of researchers from Heerlen and Maastricht. Restaura restoration studio from Heerlen produced highly detailed 3D scans.” (Phys.org 2026) They found the traces they were looking for suggesting possible patterns on the stone surface.

The wear patterns that were detected apparently followed along the diagonal lines on the stone. “To test whether play could explain the wear, researchers combined archeological observation with artificial intelligence-driven simulations. The team used the Ludii system, a platform designed to model historical board games. Two automated players competed against each other on a digital version of the stone board. The simulations drew from many rule systems recorded for small Northern European games, including examples from Scandinavia and Italy. The results showed strong agreement between the observed wear and simulations based on blocking games. In this type of game players aim to restrict an opponent’s movement rather than capture pieces. The simulated play repeatedly concentrated movement along the same lines seen on the stone surface.” (Radley 2026) While the results of the artificial intelligence analysis seem to confirm gameplay, they could not actually replicate for sure the actual game, which Crist (2026:1) refers to as Ludus Coriovalli.

Possible placement of pieces for the game as determined by AI. Image from Crist et al.

“The use wear on the stone was plausibly created through gameplay, moving playing pieces of a size and material composition consistent with examples common at Roman sites, including Coriovallum. - The fact that the observed wear pattern is only apparent in parallel with the incised lines suggests that those lines were meaningful for the action that produced abraded wear along them.” (Crist 2026:121) Although the wear on the stone surface was not as serious as the wear on the Monopoly board I played as a kid, it could be detected with microscopy. And the wear patterns suggested the possible movements of the pieces.

NOTE: Some images in this column were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Carvajal, Guiellermo, 2026, A Roman Board Game Found in Ancient Coriovallum Rewrites the History of Strategy Games, 10 February 2026, https://www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2026/02/a-roman-board-game-found-in-ancient-coriovallum-rewrites-the-history-of-strategy-games/. Accessed online 10 February 2026.

Crist, Walter et al., 2026, Ludus Coriovalli: using artificial intelligence-driven simulations to identify rules for an ancient board game, Antiquity, Vol. 100 (409), 111-126. Accessed online 11 February 2026.

Phys.org, 2026, Rules of unknown board game from the Roman period revealed, 10 February 2026, Leiden University. Accessed online 10 February 2026.

Radley, Dario, 2026,  AI simulations reveal a Roman era board game in the Netherlands, pushing Europe’s blocking games back centuries, 10 February 2026, https://archaeologymag.com/2026/02/roman-era-board-game-in-the-netherlands/. Accessed online 10 Feb. 2026.

 

 

ANCIENT ROMAN GRAFFITI WAS INSULTING TOO – POOR SECUNDINUS:

 There have been a few times when I desperately wanted to leave obscene graffiti for a boss or co-worker, but I never have. Apparently the ancient Roman soldiers who occupied Vindolanda on Hadrian’s Wall in upper England had less restraint. At least one of them carved his attitude towards another in stone.

Vindolanda, England. Internet photograph, public domain.

“Vindolanda (translated as ‘white field’ or ‘white moor’) was a Roman auxiliary fort, situated on the fringes of the Roman Empire near Hadrian’s Wall to guard a major highway called the Stanegate. No less than nine Roman forts were built of timber or stone at Vindolands from around AD 85 to AD 370, creating one of the most complex archaeological sites in Britain and a unique cultural legacy of frontier life.” (HeritageDaily 2022) These were not primitive camps for the troops, but fairly sophisticated villages with eventual stone-built buildings, and a full life for their inhabitants, including apparently a busy social life.

A birthday party invitation from Claudia Severa to Sulpicia Lepidina. Image thevintagenews.com

“Nestled in the picturesque Northumberland countryside, Vindolanda with its fort and settlement is a treasure trove of everyday life during the Roman occupation of Britain and beyond. What makes this part of the Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site so exceptional, is that some of the nearly 2,000-year-old artefacts uncovered reveal human emotions and feelings. Perhaps the most famous example is the handwritten birthday invitation where one woman very politely requests that her ‘dearest sister’ join her to celebrate her birthday.”  (Galloway 2022) At Vindolanda, the soil has a high content of clay which seals off oxygen from buried items, leaving to the survival of a wide range of artifacts made with perishable materials that just do not survive in most other contexts.

Dylan Herbert with his discovery at Vindolanda. Illustration from BBC.

“The latest discovery made at Vindolanda gives us a fascinating window into the emotions of someone in the 3^rd century, and this time they are not so polite. Dylan Herbert, a retired Biochemist from South Wales made the discovery on 19^th May, towards the end of his second week volunteering on the excavations. Dylan commented ‘I’d been removing a lot of rubble all week and to be honest this stone had been getting in my way. I was glad when I was told I could take it out of the trench. It looked from the back like all the others, a very ordinary stone, but when I turned it over, I was startled to see some clear letters. Only after we removed the mud did I realize the full extent of what I’d uncovered, and I was absolutely delighted.’” (Galloway 2022)

Secundinus "the Shitter." Illustration Vindolanda Trust.

“The stone is fairly small, measuring 40 cm wide by 15 cm tall (15 inches by 6 inches). Experts in Roman epigraphy recognized the lettering as a mangled version of Secundinus cacator, which translates into (ahem) ‘Secundinus, the shitter.’ The penus image merely added insult to injury – a clever subversion of the traditional interpretation of a phallus as a positive symbol of fertility. The Vindolanda site now has 13 phallic carvings, more than have been discovered at any other dig site along Hadrian’s wall.” (Ouellette 2022)

“Dr. Andrew Birley, Director of Excavations and CEO of the Vindoland Trust commented: ‘The recovery of an inscription, a direct message from the past, is always a great event on a Roman excavation, but this one really raised our eyebrows when we deciphered the message on the stone. It’s author clearly had a big problem with Secundinus and was confident enough to announce their thoughts publicly on a stone. I have no doubt that Secundinus would have been less than amused to see this when he was wandering around the site over 1,700 years ago.’” (Galloway 2022) Having always heard that Roman discipline was quite strict, and often brutal, I have to wonder if this message points to resentment from someone whom Secundinus had disciplined, or was perhaps going to lead to a session of such discipline for handing such an insult to Secundinus.

NOTE: Images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Galloway, Sonya, 2022, Ancient Graffiti Uncovered, 26 May 2022, https://www.vindolanda.com/news/ancient-graffiti, accessed on 7 July 2022.

HeritageDaily, 2022, Ancient graffiti insulting “Secundinus, the shitter” discovered at Roman Vindolanda, https://www.heritagedaily.com/2022/06/ancient-graffiti-insulting-secundinus-the-shitter-discovered-at-roman-vindolanda/143777, accessed on 13 July 2022.

Ouellette, Jennifer, 2022, Ancient Roman soldier carved a phallus with a personal insult in this stone, 15 June 2022, https://arstechnica.com/science, accessed on 11 July 2022.