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posted by Fnord666 on Monday December 26 2016, @03:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the that-was-one-busy-cobbler dept.

1,800 years ago the Roman army built one of its smallest but most heavily defended forts at the site of Vindolanda, which is now a part of the Frontiers of The Roman Empire World Heritage Site.

The small garrison of a few hundred soldiers and their families took shelter behind a series of large ditches and ramparts, while outside the walls a war was raging between the northern British Tribes and Roman forces.

Once the war was over (c AD 212) the troops and their dependants pulled out of the fort, and anything that they could not carry with them on the march was tossed into the defensive ditches. The rubbish in the ditches was then quickly sealed when a new Roman town and fort was built at the site, preserving the rubbish in an oxygen free environment where the normal ravages of time, rust and decay, crawled to a halt.

In 2016, the Vindolanda archaeologists excavated the ditch and discovered an incredible time capsule of life and conflict, and amongst the debris were dog and cat skeletons, pottery, leather and 421 Roman shoes. Visitors who were lucky enough to come to Vindolanda this summer watched in amazement as shoe after shoe was found in the ditch, each one a window into the life of type of person who might have once worn it. Baby boots, small children's shoes, teenagers, ladies and men's boots, bath clogs, both indoor and outdoor shoes.


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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by fustakrakich on Monday December 26 2016, @02:36PM

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday December 26 2016, @02:36PM (#446074) Journal

    Did they find the pegleg?

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Monday December 26 2016, @07:21PM

    by butthurt (6141) on Monday December 26 2016, @07:21PM (#446124) Journal

    The appeal doesn't say that any of the shoes made a pair.