Was this ancient rock part of a Roman game?

Scientists think they may have stumbled across a newly-discovered ancient game, with a little help from artificial intelligence (AI).

For years, experts have been puzzled by a rock which was found in the Dutch city of Heerlen more than one hundred years ago.

The slab - made of limestone - contains a number of straight lines but researchers weren't sure what they represented.

However, using AI, it's now thought that the rock formed the main part of a 2-player game, which was enjoyed around 1,600 years ago.

The limestone rock measures 21 by 14.5 centimetres and was found in the ground in the Dutch city of Heerlen in the late 19th or early 20th century.

In Roman times, Heerlen was an important settlement called Coriovallum.

The rock has a rectangle carved into it, containing four diagonal lines and one straight line.

In 2020, archaeologist Walter Crist came across the stone in a local museum and was immediately fascinated by the mysterious slab.

"The stone's appearance, together with the wear, strongly suggested a game, but I didn't recognise the pattern from other ancient games I know," he explained.

Mr Crist decided to take a closer look at the stone under a microscope, and then started working together with a team of specialists, who were able to produce highly detailed 3D scans of the rock.

"The scans make the traces on the stone much clearer," he explained.

"Some of those traces are a fraction of a millimetre deeper than others, meaning they were used more intensively.

"We also see that the edges of the stone are neatly finished, which indicates that this is a finished product and not a stone that still needs further working."

The team then used artificial intelligence to try and identify the board game based on the lines, and the rules of other known board games from that time.

They discovered that the wear on the stone was most likely linked to the playing of so-called blocking games - board games in which the goal is to prevent the opponent from moving.

Previously it was thought that this type of board game was first played in the Middle Ages.

However, with the stone estimated to be between 1,500 to 1,700 years old, researchers now believe that this type of game was played several centuries earlier than previously thought.

The team hopes that the new AI approach may help scientists make more old gaming discoveries in the future.

Mr Crist explained: "This research provides archaeologists with additional tools to identify games from ancient cultures."