2023-09-04 10:30:47
A shoe, size (almost) 30. It is unlikely that you will find it for your child in stores for the start of the school year, since the model was designed and made… during the Iron Age.
The leather and linen lacing remains of this 2,000-year-old little shoe were discovered in the village of Dürrnberg (Austria), in an area at that time exploited for rock salt, reveal experts from the research department in mining archeology from the Bochum Mining Museum (German Mining Museum BochumGermany) in a communiqué of October 31, 2023.
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In the mines, a perfectly preserved shoe
Since 2001, archaeologists have been excavating the ancient mines of Dürrnberg, 20 kilometers south of Salzburg, exploited for their rock salt at the end of the Iron Age (“La Tène period”). Left when the sea retreated and evaporated a few hundred million years ago, then buried under other thicknesses of sediment, these famous layers of salt were mechanically extracted by the distant inhabitants of the region, in mines carved into the rock.
Dendrochronological results give a good idea of the temporal dimensions and production capacities of the time: according to careful calculations, at the height of mining, at least five salt mines were in operation at the same time, each employing at least thirty to sixty minors, note on his site Bochum Mining Museum.
“Our research activities in Dürrnberg have provided us with valuable findings for decades in order to scientifically explore early mining activities”, develops in the press release Professor Thomas Stöllner, head of the research department. But while the discovery of leather shoes is always an event on the site, that of a toddler shoe is described as “special”, “because it shows the presence of children underground”say the researchers.
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Especially since such a level of preservation, with an entirely preserved shape, is also extremely rare: the remains of a linen string make it possible to draw hypotheses on the way in which the shoe was attached to the child’s foot. over 2000 years ago. Because it is also its particular design that has allowed experts to estimate its age, around the 2nd century BC. AD it seems.
A “photograph” of the Iron Age thanks to salt
Because organic materials break down over time, distant evidence of our ancestors wearing shoes is difficult to identify. So much so that today it is impossible to define exactly when these specific clothes became “fashionable”.
In the case of this child’s shoe, it would be the rock salt of the region that would have kept it intact for so many years. In the immediate vicinity of its discovery were also discovered other organic remains, preserved by salt: the fragment of a wooden shovel, as well as remains of fur with a lace, potential elements of an old hood in fur.
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In Central and Western Europe, the Iron Age would have begun during the first millennium BC – the first part of the age is sometimes nicknamed “Hallstatt period”, from the name of an important Austrian site located in less than 50 kilometers from Dürrnberg. And after an era marked by the production of iron tools and weapons, which replaced their bronze equivalents, it would have ended with the Roman conquests of the 1st century BC. J.-C.
“Discoveries like this child’s shoe, but also textile remains or excrement […] offer a rare insight into the life of Iron Age miners, enthuses Dr. Stöllner. They provide valuable information for our scientific work.”
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Excavations at the Dürrnberg mines will now continue over the next few years, in the hope of providing archaeologists “important information about areas of life that cannot yet be documented and studied by other sources”they conclude.
On the same topic :
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