Huge shoe found at Roman fort near Hadrian’s Wall

Footwear of unusual size has been discovered at the Roman fort of Magna near Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, England. The honker of a leather sole is 32 cm (12.6 inches) long, which converts to a US men’s size 13, UK 12.5 or EU 47. It may be the largest one in the Vindolanda Trust’s collection of more than 5,000 shoes.

Located about seven miles west of the much larger Vindolanda fort, Magna was one of a series of small forts that lined Hadrian’s Wall. It garrisoned regiments of Syrian archers and Dalmatian Mountain soldiers. It is administered by the Vindolanda Charitable Trust, and shares the anaerobic soil of its big brother. While Vindolanda has been systematically excavated for decades, Magna was only subjected to geophysical surveys before 2023, but the surveys indicated that little Magna is as rich in deposits as Vindolanda.

The Vindolanda Charitable Trust received a grant in December 2022 that allowed it at long last to embark on a five-year project to recover archaeological material under threat from climate change. Over the past two decades, unseasonably dry, hot weather has been rapidly drying out the marshes next to the forts. The loss of the regulating moisture of the wetlands has damaged the peat and soils that have made it possible for thousands of letters and shoes, among many other fragile organic remains, to survive for 2,000 years.

At the end of March, the team of archaeologists and volunteers began excavating the defensive structures outside Magna’s north wall. The bottom of one of the ditches had a long, narrow trench known as an ankle-breaker whose job was to do exactly what the name says: get an enemy soldier’s foot stuck in it, breaking his ankle. Inside the ankle-breaker is where they found three shoes and scraps of leather.

Two of the shoes are in excellent condition.

The first shoe to come out seems to have all of its sole layers intact, along with part of the heel area still attached and most of the hobnails in 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 thongs, stitching and hobnails. These also reinforced the outer surface for walking and are found on many styles of shoe. Sadly, the toe area is missing meaning that we can only estimate its original size, but it was still clear this would have been a large shoe when complete. […]

There was no doubt about the size of the second shoe we recovered from the very base of the ditch, was intact from toe to heel and immediately drew impressed gasps from volunteers and staff alike. Although in this case only one of the several sole layers, the sheer size of the shoe and guesses about who could have worn it dominated the conversation.

The shoes and scraps will now be transferred to the conservation laboratory for examination by a leather expert.

* This article was originally published here