Archaeologists Excavated a Roman Fort and Made a Weird Discovery: a Huge Ancient Shoe

Yahoo

19 hours ago

Here's what you'll learn when you read this story:
Excavations at the Roman fort Magna in northern England have already yielded three ancient leather shoes, one of which is staggering in size.
The team digging through defensive ditches on their way to excavating the fort itself found a 2,000-year-old shoe comparable to at least a modern men's size 14 shoe.
The shoes were found in a part of the trench designed to trap the feet of those trying to cross it.
About 2,000 years ago, Roman soldiers dug a deep and narrow defensive ditch on the outside of a fort in an attempt to stymie oncoming enemies who weren't paying attention or misjudged the depth. Evidently, the ditch worked, gobbling up multiple shoes during its heyday, a few of which were just discovered by an archaeological crew— and one shoe in particular made quit the impression for its transparent size.
Crews working at the Vindolanda Trust project to excavate the Magna Roman fort in northern England started from the outside of the site, working toward the main fort, meaning that they're running into some defensive ditches on the outer edges of the site. While pottery and other smaller items have been recovered, the team has been surprised by no less than three 2,000-year-old leather shoes still intact, including one at an impressive 12.6 inches long.
It 'immediately drew impressed gasps from volunteers and staff alike,' Rachel Frame, senior archaeologist for the dig project, wrote on the project's diary page.
The first shoe the crew discovered had all its sole layers intact, along with part of the heel, and most of the hobnails on the outer sole. 'This gives us a really good look at how Roman shoes were made: multiple layers of leather were used to form the sole, held together with tongs, stitching, and hobnails,' Frame wrote. 'These also reinforced the outer surface for walking and are found on many styles of shoe.'
The toe area was missing on the first shoe, not allowing the team to estimate the original size, even if it was 'clear this would have been a large shoe when complete.'
It probably wasn't large enough to measure up to the second find, a shoe recovered from the base of an 'ankle-breaker' ditch designed to trap soldiers. These ditches were deep and narrow, filled with water to hide the depth, designed to trip up and trap oncoming soldiers. The ancient piece of footwear found in the ditch measured, from heel to toe, a whopping 12.6 inches. That's comparable to a size 14 shoe in men's U.S. sizes. For reference, the 6-foot-9-inch NBA star LeBron James wears a size 15.
The shoe only had one of the sole layers, but Frame said guesses about who could have worn it dominated the conversation, and that it is likely one of the largest shoes in the Vindolanda Trust collection.
She said on a YouTube video from the site that they have now found three shoes along with various other pieces of scrap leather, most of which appear to be from shoes but will be properly identified by a leather specialist.
Finding complete shoe examples can 'tell us much more about shoe manufacturing techniques and the individuals who may have worn them in the past.' It also opens the likelihood of bigger discoveries later. 'The anaerobic preservation here has generally been pretty good, which is really promising for our future excavations,' she said. 'When we move inside the fort, we will have surviving timber buildings.'
Magna—also known as Carvoran—was at the edge of the Whin Sill on Hadrian's Wall, part of a series of Roman forts in Britain. Experts believe this site could have been a fort since 85 A.D., before the start of the wall's construction in 122 A.D.
'It's always exciting to find anything that hasn't been touched for 2,000 years but a shoe is such a personal item,' a volunteer on the project said, according to Frame. 'It really puts you in touch with the people who used to live at the fort. Getting wet and muddy and digging in the wet is just a bonus.'
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