This paper presents a mobile system that supports young students learning history at an archaeological site. It adopts gameplay as a novel and effective technique particularly suited for learning through mobile systems (mlearning). From a technological point of view, the main novelty of our system is its slim architecture. Minimal investments are required because the system runs on the students' own cellular phones. Experimental studies indicate that gameplay is able to trigger a desire to learn more about ancient history and to make archaeological visits more exciting and learning about the past more effective.