Archaeologists in England are digging around Hadrian's Wall, in ancient Roman forts and are coming up with a strange discovery.
Yes, they're finding very, very big leather shoes that don't seem to "fit" the period or the size of your typical Italian foot.
From the Smithsonian Magazine:
When archaeologists unearth ancient shoes, the artifacts are usually about the same size as the footwear we use today. However, during recent excavations in northern England, researchers were surprised to find several massive leather shoes that are much larger than usual — and they have no idea why they're so big.
The supersized footwear comes from a Roman-era fort called Magna, which is located along Hadrian's Wall, the 73-mile stone fortification built beginning in 122 C.E. [SIC] that marked the northwest boundary of the Roman Empire. Also known as Carvoran, the fort was operational from 85 C.E. [SIC] to 122 C.E.,[SIC] according to the Roman Army Museum.
They don't know anything about giants, giant shoes, or giant skeletons? (IYKYK).
So far they've dug up eight "massive" leather shoes, all nearly a foot long or longer. Which ... isn't actual that gigantic by modern standards. In fact, it's like a size 13 or 14 shoe today. We aren't talking Goliath here.
But they're still confusing archaeologists.
Researchers don't know why some of the footwear at Magna is so large. They've also unearthed thousands of shoes at the nearby Roman fort of Vindolanda, but most of those were normal in size. Of the 3,704 measurable shoes discovered at Vindolanda, just 16 of them, or about 0.4 percent, were longer than 11.8 inches, per Live Science. For comparison, 25 percent of the shoes found at Magna so far have been more than 11.8 inches long.
Sounds like Magna was the home of the Ancient Roman "Brute Squad," doesn't it?
It's not that a size 13 or 14 shoe is totally unheard of. But for 1 out of 4 shoes to belong to a someone of that size implies a physically huge force compared to others at the time.
Here's a video with a bunch of the shoes:
Of course, if you know the history of Hadrian's Wall, you might understand why the Romans wanted their beefiest soldiers to protect it. The entire wall was built to keep the savage tribes of what is today Scotland from razing Roman towns in the south of England. It was the literal end of the civilized world.
(Go read about the Picts sometime and how they would wage war against the Romans.)
The archeologists say the collection is a reminder of how the Romans used soldiers from all over the empire to protect its borders.
In the meantime, the shoes serve as a reminder 'that not every population was the same, that wide variations between the regiments and people who served along Hadrian's Wall, could be cultural and physical,' says Andrew Birley, CEO and director of excavations for the Vindolanda Trust, the organization that oversees Magna and Vindolanda, in a statement.
'We can only celebrate and marvel at the diversity and differences of these people if we can still see them in the archaeological data we gather today,' he adds.
We don't know who or what wore these shoes, but we do know that diversity was their strength!
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