While excavated near an old port in Oslo, archaeologists discovered thousands of preserved, flooded leather from nearly 700 years ago. Bags, wallets, shoes and sword sheaths (all around the 13th and 14th centuries) reveal new information about daily life in Norway during the Middle Ages.
In this past winter and spring, archaeologists from the Norwegian Maritime Museum and the Norwegian Institute of Cultural Heritage began digging at a site called D2 ahead of the planned construction of Bjorbika School, a new primary and secondary school in Oslo.
In the Middle Ages, the excavation area was open water at the port at the mouth of the Arna River. However, in the 19th century, the area was filled to create more land. It ended up storing discarded items there and creating an archaeological treasure trove of leather goods.
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It is possible that the artifact was caught in the port for a variety of reasons. Traders lost the items they were transferring to, children dropped bowls of the pilgrimage, and people dumped their old shoes. The light items made of wood and leather may have been zipped upstream and floated down the river and settled in the harbor.
The wet clay in the old port preserves countless leather artifacts and does not break down in oxygen-free environments. So far, archaeologists have discovered over 200 shoes. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it went well over 1,000 before we finish everything we found,” they wrote in a translated blog post.
Many of the older shoes show signs of wear, suggesting that they were intentionally pitched in the past. One shoe was very large and fitted US size 13 or 47 for European sizing men. Some had leather-cut decorations, but most were simple hand-painted shoes. These are leather shoe soles and leather upper boots.
Related: 8 old Roman shoes of “exceptional size” found in a Roman fort near Hadrian’s wall
“Today, when you hold one of these shoes in your hand, it’s like being near someone who walked there,” the researcher wrote. “It’s like a footprint from the Middle Ages. It’s concrete evidence that people live, walk and live their lives in this city.”
In addition to shoes, archaeologists have discovered 15 medieval bags and wallets from the Bjørvika School Dig. Most of these bags were worn over a belt and small enough to be hidden under the tunic. Both women and men used the bags as “practical accessories” before the pockets were sewn onto the clothing, the researchers wrote in a translated blog post.
“The bags contained what you need during the day,” the researchers wrote. This could include coins, combs, needles and threads, as well as small crosses and talismans. “Medieval people had to carry things around like we did,” they wrote, and leather bags “give us insights into how people organize their daily lives and what they cherished.”
Almost everyone in the Middle Ages was carried around a knife attached to a belt, the researchers wrote in a blog post. Archaeologists also discovered several protective leather sheath sites on the Bjørvika school site.
One of the last things archaeologists excavated on this site this spring was the dog skeleton. In a blog post, researchers said that most of the 3,000+ bones recovered were from food waste, but the partially complete skeleton of a medium-sized dog was a surprise.
“The bones show no obvious signs of wear, disease, or amputation,” they wrote.
Although the excavations of archaeological materials are now complete, researchers are just beginning to study many of the recovered finds, hoping to gain new insights into medieval Oslo.
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