Huge leather shoes found at Magna Fort in Northumberland, England – The Vindolanda Charitable Trust / SWNS

A Roman legionary’s shoe has been discovered near Hadrian’s Wall by resident archaeologists.

The hefty leather sole measures a whopping 12.8 inches from toe to heel and is believed to have been worn by a giant Roman soldier.

Archaeologists dug up a total of 32 shoes from a so-called ‘ankle-breaker’ trench at the Magna Roman Fort in Northumberland in May this year.

Eight of the shoes were more than 11.8 inches in length—the equivalent of a US size 14 or a UK size 13, leaving the archaeologists scratching their heads.

“We have to assume it’s something to do with the people living here, having bigger feet, being potentially taller but we don’t know,” said archaeologist Rachel Frame. “Are the people living there from a specific region? Could that be why their shoes are so much larger?”

“But at the moment, it’s sort of, well, this is unusual.”

The large leather shoes were found in a shallow defensive ditch, which the Romans also used as a rubbish dump.

At the nearby Vindolanda settlement, which is seven miles from the Magna Fort, 5,000 shoes have been unearthed since the 1970s. However, only four or five of the shoes measured more than 12 inches, suggesting people were much smaller despite living nearby.

Huge leather shoes found at Magna Fort in Northumberland, England – The Vindolanda Charitable Trust / SWNS

Due to low oxygen conditions in the soil at the sites, the leather shoes were so well preserved the soles were almost completely intact, including the treads.

Several pairs of children’s shoes were also found in the same ditch in the Magna Fort, suggesting giant Roman soldiers lived there with their families. In fact, so many shoes have been found across the two sites, the Vindolanda archaeological trust maintains a “shoe specialist.”

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“Even from this small sample uncovered it is clear that these shoes are much larger on average than most of the Vindolanda collection,” said Dr. Elizabeth Greene, Associate Professor at the University of Western Ontario, and aforementioned shoe specialist.

“Although we are comparing this new collection which has not yet gone through the conservation process with the Vindolanda shoes that have, even taking into account a maximum shrinkage of up to 1cm/10mm, it still means these shoes are very large indeed.”

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Vindolanda has been surprising archaeologists for decades. GNN recently reported that  amateur excavators unearthed a sculpture of the Roman winged goddess of victory.

Vindolanda was the site of a Roman fort near Hadrian’s wall, and has been under spade and trowel for decades. Only one quarter of the sprawling complex has been explored, and currently teams of professionals and volunteers are digging at the site’s infantry barracks.

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