The most ancient shoe ever discovered in Germany is made of leather. A group of German archeologists discovered it in a swamp near Dortmund. According to the researchers, the shoe is over 2,000 years old, and the individual lost it when he/she stepped in mud. That same mud, in turn, returned the shoe in pristine conditions.
The shoe lost and found in a swamp
The archeologists with the Lower Saxony State Office for Monument Preservation found the leather shoe during an excavation conducted to restore an old passageway made of wood. This artifact was discovered within the Bohlenweg Pr 6, which is located between Diephol and Lohne. According to the researchers, the shoe is dated to the late Iron Age, meaning that it would be over 2,000 years old. It’s shaped similarly to a sandal on the front part, with a leather lace that ties the two parts. Other excavations had brought to light similar items, mainly in the moorlands, but none of them were even close to being this ancient.
Thousands of years of history
“The Lower Saxon Moore-Berge contain evidences of many thousands of years of history. They make up a unique archive, as they have not only preserved processed shards and metal objects as former evidence of our history, but also organic finds – explains the Lower Saxony minister of Science and Culture, is pleased about Lower Saxony, Björn Thümler -. The best known are the mummified corpses, but also wooden idols, long wooden paths and numerous other remnants of life at that time. A shoe that is lost and found again after 2,000 years, the oldest shoe from Lower Saxony to date, is a huge personal testimony to a previous life. It is one of those testimonies that make time tangible as if under a magnifying glass”.
Image from denkmalpflege.niedersachsen.de
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