Roman game piece deciphered

[guy]

 

A rounded limestone fragment is thought to be a piece of a game. It was found near Heerlen, Netherlands, at the archaeological site of Corovallum.

 

AI was used to evaluate the use-wear, leading to proposed guidelines. Below are images of potential glass game pieces discovered at the site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-ancient-roman-game-board-was-a-mystery-researchers-used-ai-to-figure-out-how-to-play-180988266/

 

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/ludus-coriovalli-using-artificial-intelligencedriven-simulations-to-identify-rules-for-an-ancient-board-game/E5644BD43F8A5DC86DD1183A3E645ED9

 

Corovallum near Heerlen was a military and civilian settlement on the frontier of Germania Inferior. The site was an important industrial and logistical hub, known for large-scale Roman pottery production.

Edited February 28 by guy

[guidoLaMoto]

AI has a ways to go....

That limestone "game board" appears to be ~ 3 ft x2.5ft x 9 in in size and weighs in the range of 1000 lb....hardly something you'd fold up to hide in a drawer when not in use...

The very straight lines etched onto the "playing surface" don't fit very well...You'd think they'd have kept the playing edges away from the edges of the large stone.

The "wear patterns" supposedly made  by repeatedly  moving stone playing pieces are evaluated at only a few, scattered spots...not a very good sample for statistical analysis....My old Monopoly board has seen decades of use of metal pieces (I always liked the top hat) on a paper/cardboard surface, and there's still minimal wear showing.

The academic paper only briefly mentions alternative interpretations... It seems more likely to me that it was a building block meant to serve as a decorative piece but was discarded when the intended pattern etched on surface didn't quite fit.