On the Frontier of an Empire
By James Kensington Thu, Dec 8, 2016
The Roman fort of Vindolanda in northern England has revealed a fascinating glimpse into the personal lives of people on the cusp between Imperial Rome and indigenous British tribes.
It wasn’t a massive trove of ancient gold coins or jewelry that excited these archaeologists.
It was a shoe.
And then another.
And in short order, hundreds of them.
To date, 421 of them, dug up in a single season of excavation by a team of archaeologists, students and volunteers, some of whom came from distant locations across the globe.
Made of leather, these 1,800-year-old shoes should have decayed into oblivion almost as many years ago. But the anaerobic conditions of their surrounding cocoon of soil made sure the physical evidence survived nearly 2 millennia to the present day. And with this, a rare, tantalizing glimpse into the everyday lives of the people who lived in this place so long ago began to emerge. They were Roman soldiers, wives, mothers, and children — people who left behind indoor and outdoor ladies and men’s shoes, baby boots, children’s shoes, shoes for teenagers, some shoes that could be described as ‘designer’ footwear, and even bath clogs. Along with a variety of other artifacts, they were discarded into a defensive ditch dug around a 3rd century AD Roman frontier fort by its occupants. The ditch was one among a number of measures taken to protect the fort and its Roman cohort of soldiers, their families, and others from the hostility that swirled about them outside its protective enclave.
https://popular-archaeology.com/article/on-the-frontier-of-an-empire/
