The day we found a Roman shoe in a bog was the best day of my career

We were digging a drainage ditch in Cheshire when the shovel hit something soft. Pulled out a complete leather sandal from the 2nd century, still had the nail holes in the sole. Has anyone else had a find that just came out of nowhere like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

wright.kevin6d ago

Honestly, I remember reading about how bog conditions preserve leather like that. It's crazy because normally leather rots away completely but the tannins in the peat basically pickle it. Ngl, that must have been a wild moment when you realized it was a whole shoe and not just a piece of trash. I saw a documentary once where they pulled a whole Roman shoe from a bog in Germany and it still had the stitching visible. That kind of find changes how you think about the past, you know? Like suddenly the Romans aren't just names in a book, they're people who wore shoes and walked around in the mud just like us. Tbh, I bet that sandal is one of your most prized finds.

rosek446d ago

I saw a doc where a Roman shoe popped out of a bog in Germany, crazy how well that stuff holds up.