Playing at the frontier – on two Roman gaming boards from the limes hinterland

Abstract

The gaming board from Nassenfels (Lkr. Eichstätt) can be associated with the ludus XII scriptorum. In view of the execution of the triangles on the playing field the author only knows of one parallel, i.e. a gaming board in Autun (Sâone-et- Loire/F). The gaming board was incised in a tile laid out for drying, hastily but by all means with a trained hand. It served as distraction for the workers in the tilery until the building tile was delivered. In a villa in Möckenlohe (Lkr. Eichstätt) rect angular fields for the Small Nine Men’s Morris were incised in a plate. Both examples demonstrate the popularity of games in antiquity and that gaming boards were often made spontaneously from available material. However, it should not remain unconsidered that these games were often played for money which means that leisure was not necessarily the priority.