The artifact represents a rare glimpse into the turbulent past of Lindisfarne, the site of an ancient wooden monastery targeted by a massive Viking raid in Britain in 793 A.D.-the first of many plundering expeditions that would reshape the regionвЂ™s history.Дiscovered last summer by a team of researchers from the archaeological enterprise DigVentures, the gaming piece appears to date back to the eighth or ninth century, placing it squarely in the vicinity of the VikingsвЂ™ fateful arrival, David Petts, an archaeologist at Durham University, tells the GuardianвЂ™s Esther Addley. Now, researchers conducting excavations on the English island of Lindisfarne may have uncovered one of these treasures: a tiny glass gaming piece, stained in swirls of blue and white and capped by a delicate crown of pearly beads, that may have waged war atop a checkered Hnefatafl board more than a thousand years ago.

Wherever the Scandinavian raiders went, so too did their playing pieces. Though much about Hnefatafl remains mysterious, the pastime was clearly precious. Especially popular was Hnefatafl (pronounced вЂњneffa-taffleвЂќ), a strategy game that pitted a king and his defenders against two dozen attackers. A piece of worked glass unearthed from the English island of Lindisfarne that researchers suspect may have once been a Viking game pieceДЄfter a long, hard day of pillaging, nothing helped the Vikings of yore unwind more than kicking back with a good old-fashioned board game.

Good viking games