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deeply underground in a rock - salt mine in Austria , archaeologist have made an " outstanding " discovery : the 2,200 - year - old shoe of a child .
The mine ’s tilt saltiness , which people have been mine 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 , consort to atranslated statementfrom the German Mining Museum ( DBM ) in Bochum . The lonely footwear is about a U.S. nestling ’s sizing 12 ( European children ’s size 30 ) .
The leather shoe had a piece of flax or linen that hinted at how the shoe had been tied.
" The condition of the shoe found is outstanding,“Thomas Stöllner , the museum ’s research section head , said in the statement . " constitutional material in the main decay over time . discover like this baby ’s shoe … offer an highly rarified insight into the life of Iron Age miners . "
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archeologist noticed that the leather horseshoe has a preserve remainder of lacing made from flax or linen paper , which hints at how the shoe was laced . The shoe ’s design indicates that the footwear was crafted in the second century B.C. , allot to the statement .
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While only one horseshoe was found , its discovery suggests that shaver were underground in the mine more than two millennia ago .
The museum has been carrying out archeological work in the mine since 2001 . Near the shoe , archaeologists found the fragment of a wooden shovel and the remainder of a fur with lacing , which may have belonged to a fur hood .
At the German Mining Museum , the public can go on go to learn about hard ember , mining and mineral resource aboveground , as well as on a 0.7 - mile - farsighted ( 1.2 kilometers ) underground itinerary .