Archaeologists excavating a Roman-era fort in northern England have unearthed several enormous ancient leather soles that measure more than 11.8 inches (30 centimeters) long.
The finds add to the archaeologists’ growing collection of supersized ancient footwear found at the ancient fort, known as Magna. The researchers now have eight of these extra-extra-large shoes — a quarter of the total found at the site.
The shoes were discovered at Magna — also known as Carvoran — a fort along Hadrian’s Wall, which was built around A.D. 122 to demarcate the northern extent of the Roman Empire. Magna is situated about 7 miles (11 kilometers) west of Vindolanda, the large Roman auxiliary fort that’s well known for the remarkable preservation of writing tablets, military medals and leather shoes.
I wonder if they were some form of “outerwear” that you would wear over your normal footwear in the cold.
Oh, poor chivalrous giant, ηΩδΩρ. Always the gentleman, getting the door since way back.
Giants were real, there is NO POSSIBLE OTHER EXPLANATION!!!1!
fucking /s bc internet
The article says they are basketball player sized.
Maybe they were sending really big soldiers to the front. This is near the peak of the Roman empire, which spanned multiple continents and had over 100 million people.
How is this a big (heh) deal? I wear an 8.5 shoe and my feet are 10". If I measured my boots, they would be close enough to having 12" soles.
Nutrition was harder to come by and people were generally shorter, these are notable for being very large shoes for the time period.
OK, 11.8 inches, that is 29.972cm or 45.41 Paris Stiches, i.e. European size 45. That’s big, yes, but is it really that extraordinary?
Given that overall size and shoe size are roughly correlated, maybe they just had a kind of “elite group” of large warriers to intimidate the Picts? Or maybe one large guy, high enough in the ranks to be able to afford more than a single pair of Caligae?
My guess is that they were sized to fit over extra thick foot wraps.
That, too. I mean, in the end they are caligae, sandals. Not exactly the stuff you’ll usually wear up at Hadrians Wall, especially during the winter. So wrapping a lambs fur around the feet will take the shoe European size 45 down to feet European size 40 to 42.
Why these feet were nearly a foot long!
