Deep underground in a rock-salt mine in Austria, archaeologists have made an “outstanding” discovery: the 2,200-year-old shoe of a child.
The mine’s rock salt, which people have been mining since the Iron Age (800 B.C. to 1 B.C.) in the village of Dürrnberg near present-day Salzburg, preserved the well-crafted shoe, according to a translated statement from the German Mining Museum (DBM) in Bochum. The lone footwear is about a U.S. children’s size 12 (European children’s size 30).
Good to know that when my kids were somehow losing a single shoe, they were just keeping up a millenias old tradition.
proof that the children yearn for the mines
Deep in an underground mine? Instanding discovery, hopefully we’ll gain some understanding from it
The salt mines in the area have helped provide a fascinating insight into the early Iron Age. It is possible that the salt helped make them rich (and could have helped fund the start of the Iron Age)band it’s a great place to preserve even delicate finds - they’ve even been able test their poo. There’s a huge necropolis at Hallstatt, the type locality for the culture of the same name.
