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Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports

Volume 49, June 2023, 104005
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports

The Digital Ludeme Project: Combining archaeological and
computational methods for the study of ancient board games

Author links open overlay panelWalter Crist, Dennis J.N.J. Soemers
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2023.104005Get rights and content
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Highlights

  * *

    Archaeological board game research has only recently become
    scientifically rigorous.

  * *

    Artificial Intelligence techniques can provide assistance for
    studying ancient games.

  * *

    The ludemic game description language of Ludii facilitates game
    research.

  * *

    Large rectangular Roman boards may not be Ludus Latrunculorum, as
    previously thought.

Abstract

Archaeologists and computer scientists have both studied board games
since the early days of their fields. Early archaeologists had an
interest in identifying ways of playing the games of antiquity, and
they applied diffusionist models fashionable at the time to trace the
development of games from antiquity to the games played in nineteenth
century Europe and North America. In time, a huge amount of data on
ancient games was collected, and in the last thirty years
archaeologists have studied games as they relate to social processes.
In parallel to this, artificial intelligence (AI) research has
utilized board games, primarily as testbeds for developing AI
techniques, but also as an application domain. Archaeological and AI
methods are combined in the Digital Ludeme Project, which documents
the preserved knowledge of ancient games and uses computational
techniques to evaluate research questions that can be addressed
through AI playouts of proposed rulesets for games.

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Keywords

Board games
Artificial intelligence
Digital archaeoludology
Ludemes
Digital humanities
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Data availability

No data was used for the research described in the article.

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(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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