#HTE

Incredibly Modern-Looking 2,000-Year-Old Shoe

What is believed to be the oldest leather shoe in the world is the Areni-1, some 5,500 years old, recovered by an archaeologist at an Armenian cave. It’s technically impressive for being made over five millennia ago, and it looks like what you’d expect:

However, this shoe below, recovered from a well at the Saalburg Roman Fort in modern-day Germany, is about 2,000 years old—and looks shockingly modern:

That’s 3,500 years of advancement in craft for you.

For those interested, the Saalburg Museum has (unembeddable) video here showing how this shoe was made.

Lastly, historical reproduction artisan Martin Moser produces and sells duplicate pairs of the shoe here.