Losing a shoe is nothing new — just ask the Roman soldiers and their families who were stationed at Vindolanda, a Roman auxiliary fort near Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, England. They lost so many shoes along the Roman frontier around 2,000 years ago, there's now a museum exhibit dedicated to this old footwear.
The exhibit, "Unearthing Vindolanda: Footwear from the Edge of the Roman Empire," runs from May 7, 2026, to September 2027 at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.
But the Romans were far from the only ones to lose their shoes; based on archaeological finds, it's always been common. Archaeologists the world over have found footwear hidden in caves, salt mines, wells and other locations that have excellent preservation conditions, such as a low-oxygen environment. Here are some of those discoveries.
1. Roman bathhouse clogs
Starting in about A.D. 85, Vindolanda was occupied for around 300 years by the Roman army and their families. It was a muddy place, so bath clogs would have been key to cleanliness.
"Bathhouse clogs were worn throughout the Roman Empire to elevate the wearers' feet off the wet and often heated floors often found in Roman baths," Elizabeth Semmelhack, director and senior curator at the Bata Shoe Museum, told Live Science in an email. "In Roman times, everyone going to the baths would have worn them."
Bathhouse clogs had high wooden soles, as well as leather straps to keep them secured. "More decorative examples feature incised designs in the wood and even stamped leather designs on the instep strap," Semmelhack said.
So far, the Vindolanda collection has 44 wooden clogs, according to a blog post from the Vindolanda Charitable Trust.
2. Roman "lattice" shoe
This upper part of a Roman shoe was a stylish lattice. It was time-consuming to create lattice patterns, so it's no surprise that they are found on more elite footwear, Semmelhack said.
The lattice also went hand in hand (or should we say foot in foot?) with attractive socks.
"The cut-outs also allowed for colourful socks to be seen through the lattice work of the shoe adding visual interest to the overall look of a wearer"s ensemble," she said. "The cut-outs also allowed the upper to slightly stretch making for a more customizable fit."
3. Roman hobnails
Oftentimes, the leather part of Roman-era shoes decays, leaving only the hobnails, or short nails with thick heads, for archaeologists to find. But here, a sole has survived with its hobnails.
"Hobnails were used by the Romans to improve the durability of their footwear and to provide increased traction especially in muddy areas or places with rough terrain," Semmelhack said.
4. Roman military sandal at a settlement in Germany
Archaeologists in Bavaria used X-rays to examine the remains a 2,000-year-old leather sandal found at a settlement outside a Roman military camp. The sole of the shoe contained several "well-preserved nails," and researchers determined the footwear was a heavy-duty, hobnailed sandal known as a caliga that was part of the uniform issued to Roman legionary soldiers and auxiliaries. The nails would have provided traction during marches over challenging terrain.
5. Roman-era lady's leather slipper in England
This leather slipper from Gaul (modern-day France) would have been worn by a woman and is one of more than 5,000 shoes discovered by researchers at Vindolanda. Nicknamed "Lepidina's slipper" after the wife of Roman general Quintus Petillius Cerialis, this flip-flop style sandal was unearthed inside the couple's home and contains the maker's mark of the designer, Lucius Aebutius Thales, and is decorated with "vine leaves and two cornucopiea interlocked across an ear of corn," according to the Vindolandia Charitable Trust, which counts the footwear as part of its collection.
6. Child's shoe in an Austrian salt mine
While exploring a rock-salt mine in Austria, archaeologists made a surprising find: a child's shoe. Despite being 2,200 years old, the leather shoe was in "outstanding" condition and even had its flax or linen laces intact. Researchers credited the footwear's excellent preservation to the mine's optimally arid conditions. The lone shoe offers evidence that children were working in the mines more than two millennia ago, archaeologists said.
7. Decorated Roman sandal in a well in Spain
Archaeologists devised a pulley system to retrieve a 2,000-year-old Roman sandal that was at the bottom of a well in Spain and caked in mud. After cleaning the shoe, researchers discovered that the leather sandal was elaborately "decorated with a profusion of circles, loops, ovals and other motifs." The team surmised that the shoe likely slipped off the wearer while they were cleaning the well.
8. Grass sandals in a Spanish bat cave
In 2023, archaeologists unearthed a pair of 6,200-year-old grass-woven sandals that researchers have deemed the oldest known shoes ever found in Southern Europe. The ancient footwear was discovered inside a bat cave in southern Spain alongside a collection of other surprising finds, including 9,500-year-old woven baskets used by hunter-gatherers, a wooden mallet and human skeletal remains.
9. Bronze Age boot in Norway
The award for the oldest shoe ever found in Norway goes to this 3,000-year-old boot that archaeologists pulled from a melting mountain ice patch. Thanks to the glacial conditions, the single leather shoe was impeccably preserved; based on its small size (about a 4 or 5 in today's U.S. sizes; a 35 in European sizes), researchers think it belonged to a woman or a child. Other finds from that 2007 expedition include several arrows and a wooden spade, which offer clues that this might have been a popular hunting ground at the time.
10. Iron Age skis in Norway
In 2014, glacier archaeologists discovered a solitary wooden ski at the top of an ice-packed mountain in Norway. In 2021, the team returned to the site and unearthed the Iron Age orphan's missing mate. Both skis were in excellent condition thanks to their icy grave and even contained their original birchwood bindings, which helped keep the Iron Age skier's feet firmly in place more than 1,000 years ago.
11. Jar filled with shoes inside an Egyptian temple
Archaeologists found a collection of ancient footwear crammed into a jar inside an Egyptian temple in Luxor. Researchers counted seven shoes in total, including two sets of children's shoes that were tied within a larger folded shoe, and a pair of adult shoes. The shoes showed uneven wear, implying that the wearer had walked with a limp. Based on the numerous repairs made to the shoes, researchers concluded that the more than 2,000-year-old eclectic collection contained "highly prized commodities" and were far from the disposable fast fashion that's common today.
12. Leather Iron Age sandal in Norway
A hiker discovered a single leather sandal during a mountain trek in Norway. After alerting authorities to his find, archaeologists retrieved the shoe — as well as several other items, including a selection of textiles and chunks of frozen horse manure — from the icy mountaintop. Radiocarbon dating concluded that the shoe dates to around A.D. 300. Together, these artifacts suggest that the location was likely a popular route for people traveling from inland Norway to the coast.
13. Children's shoes at a Roman military base in Britain
Social status was an important aspect of the culture in the Roman Empire, and people's choice of clothing was one way they showed off their wealth. This can be seen in a pair of itty-bitty shoes meant for an infant; they were modeled after men's footwear that researchers discovered at Vindolanda.
14. Woolen socks from Egypt
Archaeologists discovered these cozy-looking woolen socks with split toes sometime during the 19th century in Egypt. Made of three-ply wool, they were created during the fourth or fifth centuries, using a technique called "nålbindning," which is more similar to sewing than knitting, since it employed a single, flat needle and thread, according to the Victoria and Albert Museum, where they are housed.
15. Goat leather shoes inside a Chinese tomb
A pair of 1,400-year-old goat leather shoes were brought back to their original grandeur after archaeologists restored the footwear. The items were found inside China's Astana Tombs, one of many stops along the Silk Route. It took 20 days for researchers to remove the dirt and mold that had accumulated on the shoes over the centuries, but the effort was worth it. Once the shoes were cleaned, the team discovered that whoever created the footwear used animal sinew (tendons) to stitch them together.
Editor's note: This countdown was originally published on Feb 7, 2024, and was updated to include new shoes on June 24, 2024, and again on April 17, 2026, to include the shoes and information on the Vindolanda shoes.
