Experimental interpretation of ancient games through playtesting

Reconstructing the rules of ancient games remains one of archaeology’s most intricate interpretive challenges. While surviving boards and pieces provide tangible evidence, the logic of play, rules, roles, and goals have largely vanished. Traditional reconstructions rely on text and comparisons to better known games, yet these methods seldom capture the experiential and social dimensions of ancient gameplay. This paper presents an experimental framework designed to explore how such systems might emerge through play itself. Using Ludus Latrunculorum (“The Game of Little Soldiers”) as a case study, participants engaged in iterative, co-creative sessions where they invented, refined, and transmitted rules across successive lineages of play. The resulting games revealed recurring mechanics that closely parallel known reconstructions of Ludus Latrunculorum. While the outcomes do not claim historical accuracy, they demonstrate how collective experimentation can illuminate the cognitive and social processes underlying the development of structured games in antiquity. The study thus proposes experimental play as a complementary archaeological tool for examining how rulesets evolve, stabilize, and reflect the societies that produce them.