FIRST SIGHT

Much enlarged (the original is a little under 2cm across) this glass gaming piece was found at an excavation of an early medieval monastery on Lindisfarne, Northumberland, last September. Only the second of its kind known from the UK, it would have been part of a set used in tafl, a game derived from the Roman ludus latrunculorum and played across Ireland, Britain and Scandinavia. It is thought to have come from the disturbed grave of someone who died before the island was raided by Vikings in AD793. Photography Dig Ventures / Durham University