18 July 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

A 2,000-Year-Old Shoe Discovered in a German Bog

Archaeologists discovered a leather shoe that had been lost in a bog for 2,000 years and believe it may have fallen off the owner’s foot when they walked in the sticky muck by mistake.

The shoe was discovered alongside a wooden road estimated to be over two millennia old by researchers from the State Office for Monument Preservation in Lower Austria and the excavation company denkmal3D of Vechta, Germany.

The road is simply a collection of worn wooden planks that were originally placed over the wetlands to allow people to pass securely.

The wooden planks were put down to assist people to negotiate the marshes. In addition to the shoe, a broken axle was found, leading archeologists to believe that while changing it for a new one, the owner lost a shoe in the boggy ground.

Researchers who participated in the excavations think that the acidic conditions of the bog where the shoe was discovered allow for the preservation of materials such as skin, hair, nails, wool, and leather, all of which include the protein keratin.

The Bronze Age path in Lower Saxony, Germany, where an ancient sandal was found. (Lower Saxony State Office for Heritage:Zenger News)
The Bronze Age path in Lower Saxony, Germany, where an ancient sandal was found. (Lower Saxony State Office for Heritage:Zenger News)

The State Office for Monument Preservation reported that the shoe is a type of sandal, with a closed toe and a leather strap.

“Lower Saxony’s moorlands hold the testimonies of several thousands years of history,” said Lower Saxony Minister of Science and Culture Bjorn Thumle. “They are a unique archive, as they have not only preserved processed pieces and metal objects, but organic finds, too.”

‘The axle of a wooden cart, probably pulled by cattle, broke in two and the cart had an accident on the bumpy road,’ excavation company denkmal3D of Vechta, Germany, shared in a translated statement.

‘While doing this or trying to recover the car parts, the owner of the shoe fell or stepped beside the path and the shoe got stuck in the sticky mud.’

Lower Saxony’s Minister for Science and Culture, Björn Thümler said in the statement: ‘The best known are the bog corpses, but also wooden idols, long wooden paths and numerous other remnants of life at that time are part of it.’

‘A shoe that is lost and found again after 2,000 years, the oldest shoe from Lower Saxony to date, is an immensely personal testimony to a previous life.

The lone shoe resembles a sandal, with a closed toe and a leather strap connecting one side to the other.

As for the road itself, the archaic route between Lohne and Diepholz was built of wooden boards set next to each other for a distance of 2.5 miles (4 kilometers). The route, which is thought to date back to the Late Bronze Age, was unearthed in Lower Saxonian moorland in June 2019.

Cover Photo: (Niedersachsisches Landesamt fur Denkmalpflege (NLD):Zenger News)

Related Articles

Where We Saw Sin, There Was Care: A Baby Buried in a Medieval Belgian Brothel

23 May 2025

23 May 2025

A medieval brothel in Belgium yields a discovery that forces historians to confront forgotten tenderness in places long seen only...

An Erotic Frescoes Decorated ‘Tiny House’ Has Been Discovered in Pompeii

26 October 2024

26 October 2024

During investigations at the construction site of the Insula dei Casti Amanti along Via dell’Abbondanza in the central area of...

Mummy of Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep ‘unwrapped’ for the first time in 3,500 years!

30 December 2021

30 December 2021

Egyptian scientists have digitally unwrapped the 3,500-year-old mummy of pharaoh Amenhotep I. For the first time, a team in Egypt...

The 2800-year-old Urartians Lake, which is an engineering masterpiece of its time, is drying

13 July 2023

13 July 2023

Keşiş Lake in Van, in eastern Turkey, which was built by the Urartu King Rusa 2,800 years ago, was negatively...

The first Bull Geoglyph discovered in central Asia

29 September 2021

29 September 2021

Archaeologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of History of Material Culture (IIMK RAS) and LLC Krasnoyarsk Geoarchaeology discovered...

Ancient Three Fortresses: Layered Defense on Egypt’s Eastern Border at Tell Abu Saifi

11 May 2025

11 May 2025

Archaeological excavations at the strategically significant Tell Abu Saifi site in North Sinai have unearthed compelling evidence of Egypt’s long-standing...

Ancient Mythical Castle “Sörby Borg” Discovered on Swedish Island Creates Archaeological Sensation

4 August 2021

4 August 2021

A text from the early 18th century mentions the castle, which has become a bit of a legend. It has...

White grape pips found in the Negev dated may be the oldest of its kind worldwide

29 April 2023

29 April 2023

Researchers from the University of York, Tel Aviv University, and the University of Copenhagen provide new insight into the mystery...

Digs at Turkey’s Seyitömer mound reveals thousands of artworks

20 March 2022

20 March 2022

Approximately 14,500 artifacts have been unearthed during rescue excavations carried out over 33 years at Seyitömer Mound in Turkey’s western...

The Splendor of the Seven Descending Gods of Tulum Resurfaced

11 February 2024

11 February 2024

The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) says the splendor of the seven Descending Gods of Tulum has resurfaced....

1,600-Year-Old Tomb of First Maya King Discovered in Caracol, Belize

11 July 2025

11 July 2025

Archaeologists have unearthed the 1,600-Year-Old Tomb of First Maya King at Caracol, Belize, marking one of the most significant Maya...

2,000-year-old graves found in ancient necropolis beneath Paris Train Station

24 April 2023

24 April 2023

Archaeologists have discovered 50 tombs in an ancient necropolis just meters from a busy train station in central Paris, and...

2,000-Year-Old Unique Composite Fish Scaled Armor Found in Ancient Tomb

20 December 2024

20 December 2024

Chinese researchers have recently found fish-scaled armor in the tomb of Liu He, Marquis of Haihun from the Western Han...

2000-year-old Ancient Greek ‘graduate school yearbook’ carved in stone found

5 June 2022

5 June 2022

Historians have discovered that an ancient Greek inscription on a marble slab in the collection of the National Museums of...

Receding waters in Lake Van reveal rock-cut Urartian port

22 September 2022

22 September 2022

Located in the eastern province of Van in Turkey, the falling water level of Lake Van, with the decrease in...