At first glance, the remains of an ancient Roman sandal look more like small, gnarled carcasses than shoes. But after closer inspection and X-rays, archaeologists say the shoe parts they found at a former military site are exceptionally well preserved.
Discovered in a roughly 2,000-year-old fort near Oberstimm, a village in Bavaria, Germany, the remains of the shoes include an iron sole and nails, which would have provided traction on “rough terrain,” according to one translation. statement of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation (BLfD). Typically, only the studs of these shoes remain, but this is a rare case in which the soles also survived. Archaeologists found the remains in a well in the ancient fort; Before the X-rays, they believed the twisted mass contained what remained of an old sickle, according to a BLfD statement.
“Caligae (shoes) were mainly worn by Roman soldiers during the Roman Empire,” says Amira Adaileh, a consultant with the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation. However, the discovery “shows that the practices, lifestyles and clothing that the Romans brought with them to Bavaria were adopted by the local population.” Other finds at the site include Roman ceramics, food waste and tools.
Although the remains look nothing like the “gladiator sandals” of today, they look surprisingly familiar – and perhaps even stylish – in a reconstruction published by BLfD; she describes what they might have originally looked like, around the time the Roman fort was thought to have been occupied, between 60 and 130 AD.
