Rules of mysterious ancient Roman board game decoded by AI A Roman stone board game has been unplayable since its discovery more than a century ago, but AI might have just worked out the rules By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rules-of-mysterious-ancient-roman-board-game-decoded-by-ai/?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=810e538b13-nature-briefing-daily-20260211&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-33f35e09ea-50432164 It was the summer of 2020, and researcher Walter Crist was wandering around the exhibits inside a Dutch museum dedicated to the presence of the ancient Roman empire in the Netherlands. As a scientist who studies ancient board games, one exhibit stuck out to Crist: a stone game board dating to the late Roman Empire. It was about eight inches across and etched with angular lines that roughly formed the shape of an oblong octagon inside a rectangle.