Nut games were very popular with Roman children - just like you play with conkers today. Nuts can always be found somewhere and dont cost anything. Children have been seen playing with nuts on wall paintings and carved on children's stone coffins. One latin saying, "nubis relictis", or in English, "to have left the nuts behind" meant to have become a grown-up. Some of the rules of these games can be found in Latin poems, such as one called "Nux", or "the Nut". The Roman Poet Martial also wrote in one story "With heavy heart the lad leaves the nuts lying".

There are lots of different ways to play with nuts, usually involving either throwing or rolling them

NUT POTS (THE ORCA GAME)

This is a bit like crown green bowling. Each player starts with 10 walnuts. They take turns to roll one down a slope to try to hit the other nuts. If they hit a nut, they take both nuts. If you run out of nuts you are out. The last player with any nuts is the winner.

NUT TOWERS

This is a bit like the sort of bowling but with throwing instead of rolling. 5 little piles of walnuts (1 nut on top of 3 others) are set up at different distances from the start line (between 2.5 and 4 metres away). Each player starts with 5 nuts. He has 5 throws to try to break up the heaps, keeping those he has hit. He always keeps his original 5 even if he misses. Then the piles are rebuilt from spare nuts for the next player. The winner is the one with most nuts after 5 goes.

NUT TRIANGLES (THE DELTA GAME)