3D Printing Gives New Life to an Ancient Game Board Discovered at a Roman Fort Near Hadrian’s Wall in England

Soldiers and civilians alike enjoyed strategy game Ludus Latrunculorum in the Roman Empire, especially in Roman Britain

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

July 2, 2026 3:45 p.m.

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Researchers in England, equipped with a 3D printer, created a playable replica of Roman Britain’s most popular board game, Ludus Latrunculorum.

The reproduction is based on a stone board discovered at Vindolanda, an archaeological site in England, near Hadrian’s Wall. A Roman frontier fort and town occupied between roughly 85 C.E. and 200 C.E., several thousand people lived in the settlement at any one time. Despite being only a quarter excavated, Vindolanda has yielded plenty of artifacts—board games included.

Archaeologists found the game in 2019 buried between a bathhouse drain and workshop wall, beside a road from the third century C.E. The artifact, which was split into five pieces, appeared to have been repurposed at some point as a flagstone, on top of which the foundations of a farm were built.

Notably, the game was found outside Vindolanda’s fort, suggesting civilians, including women and children, played it, not just soldiers. In fact, Vindolanda appears to have been a haven for ancient board game hobbyists: more than a dozen sets of Ludus Latrunculorum have been discovered there alone.

Before the game was loaned to Toronto’s Bata Shoe Museum, researchers at Newcastle University scanned each piece with a handheld Artec 3D Spider scanner, 3Dprinting.com reports, to create a virtual 3D model. They then printed a copy of the board in polylactic acid plastic.

“It was amazing to be involved in the actual scanning process and to see something so complex and historical be realistically recreated,” Sophie Westlake, the activity and diversity officer of the Vindolanda Trust, says in a statement. “It will be very beneficial for the Vindolanda Trust to have a replica Roman game board and 3D interactive model, both whilst the original Roman board is on loan and to create a more engaging, tactile experience for the visitor.”

Visitors to Vindolanda will have a chance to play Ludus Latrunculorum on the recreated board at the Roman Army Museum. Though there is no definitive set of surviving rules, a smattering of descriptions throughout history make researchers think that it bore resemblance to checkers, with two players aiming to capture their opponents’ pieces by trapping them in between their own.

Ancient writings reference the game, which is sometimes called “the game of little brigands,” “the game of little robbers,” or “soldiers.”

“You vary the moves of your counters on the open board, and wars are fought out by a soldiery of glass, so that at one time a white counter traps blacks, and at another a black traps whites,” reads an early reference to the game from the Roman empire.

Archaeological evidence suggests that a wide range of people in ancient Roman society, from children to Emperor Claudius, enjoyed board games.

“Our future research will look at these social aspects of gaming and in doing so, we hope to cast new light on the everyday life of the Vindolanda community,” reads a statement from the Vindolanda Charitable Trust.

Christian Thorsberg | Read More

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.