Vikings are well known as fearsome warriors and enterprising traders. We tend to think less often of them as board game addicts, but new archaeological evidence has thrown new light on this other important aspect of Viking life. Finds from the recently investigated winter camp of the Viking Great Army in AD 872-3 at Torksey include over 300 lead gaming pieces. Having been identified first at Torksey, these small objects have now been recognised at other Viking camps at Aldwark and Repton, and we've discovered them at scores of other places visited by members of the Great Army. These unassuming but diagnostic artefacts have even been spotted at sites in southern Denmark and the Netherlands, as members of the army returned to Scandinavia and the Continent.
Image courtesy D. Hadley & J Richards
They take a variety of forms, but most are around 2-4cm tall and are made of lead; the majority are conical or domed, and many are hollow and would stack inside each other. Some, which we assume are the king pieces, have 3-5 knobbed protuberances or ribs to denote their crowns. Much finer gaming pieces, including some made of glass, are known from chamber graves at Birka in Sweden, but the evidence from the camps shows that these gaming pieces were everyday disposable items. Indeed, we believe that those at Torksey were made there, possibly from lead from the remains of a Roman villa on the site. Many were clearly lost or discarded in the camp and the variety of forms shows that there were hundreds of gaming sets, suggesting that many warriors had their own sets.
We don't know a lot about the games that were played, but it is assumed they were a form of tafl, derived from Roman prototypes, and from the later Icelandic Sagas it appears that Hnefatafl was a popular Scandinavian game, in which one player had to surround and capture their opponent's king, apparently by driving them into the corner of the board. The best-preserved gaming board was made of yew wood and was found at Ballinderry crannog in Ireland in 1932. It comprises a square with 7 places on each side. Other sources suggest that boards of 11 x 11 and 13 x 13 were also used.
No doubt playing Hnefatafl occupied the time whilst the Great Army overwintered, and one can imagine warriors gathered around their campfires, watching the games and gambling on the outcome, as items of looted hacksilver changed hands. In our 2025 book Life in the Viking Great Army: Raiders, Traders and Settlers we say more about the role of game playing on the camps, and the other activities which were taking place. A full open access catalogue of all the finds from Torksey, including the gaming pieces is available from the Archaeology Data Service.
Julian Richards and Dawn Hadley