The Roman Shoe Project: The HEELing Art of Shoemaking

I asked my Roman Technology students, "How many people can say they know someone who's actually made a pair of shoes?" Before I realized my mistake, they looked around with sly smiles on their faces. One kid finally said, "Uh, I know about 25!"

Our shoes are finally done! We started in January, missed a lot of days due to weather, field trips, and special events, and finished right in time for the end of the 3rd quarter. It was a challenging project for some of my students who lacked the fine motor skills necessary for cutting and sewing, but my helpful students refused to let anyone fall behind.

On Monday, we ended our Roman shoe unit by reflecting on what we learned. Most students were most proud of themselves for learning to sew. It was their first experience with this skill. Many students mentioned how much they enjoyed this project because it gave them the freedom to be creative while spending time chatting with friends in their class as they worked. When asked to reflect on the lives of ancient shoemakers, the students used words like "tedious, physically hard, and stressful" to describe the experience. 

Our next step was to celebrate our shoes by having a fashion show. Of course, we had to use the Roman road as our runway. I mean, come onnnnn!! What better location?! For the show day, I asked the students to wear colorful socks so that they would show through the decorative punches in their shoes. It's thought that the Romans did the same thing in the colder climates of the northern empire.

Our next step will be to test the shoe construction on different surfaces. On some days we will wear the shoes to walk around our classroom and do normal tasks. On other days when we work outside (for our aqueduct STEM challenge), we'll be wearing them on concrete sidewalks. At the end of the 4th quarter, we'll look at wear patterns. To be clear, the Romans called these shoes CARBATINAE. They were meant to be worn as "slipper shoes" around the Roman house so we'll be stressing ours a little beyond their capabilities.

The Roman Shoe Project: SHOEperstars!!

Y'all!!! Our shoes are done, but before I share pictures of our runway sho(w)e (LOL, get it?), I wanted to talk about the long process of building before we slip on our shoes.

Step 1: Find a pattern.

My biggest fear about this project was not having a pattern for a shoe that we could easily reproduce. A shoe-making expert had sent me a picture of a pattern he uses, but a picture of a pattern is not a pattern. I knew I couldn't draw a pattern myself. I thought back to all the times I handled Roman shoe replicas at British archaeological sites in 2022 and wished that I had had the forethought to trace out one of those shoes into a pattern. But then in randomly searching around the internet, I found this simple pattern, and all my fears dissipated. I knew we could easily Romanize it, and I liked that it did not involve cutting out inner circles within the leather because younger students often have issues with cutting out intricate designs.

Step 2: Visit the experts in person.

My next biggest fear was ordering the right leather, but then I remembered my advice to others about a big project: go to the experts and ask them. Since the amazing Tandy Leather store that used to be on Government Street right near my school was no longer there, I visited the Tandy location in New Orleans. To be fair, few people today walk into a leather store and ask for advice in making 75 pairs of ancient Roman leather shoes so I wasn't expecting much help, but the Tandy expert was super knowledgeable and interested in our project. She showed me samples and gave me advice on what and how much to order. I'm so glad I took my own advice.

Step 3: Order the leather.

Put aside all feelings of your own personal vegetarian sadness and order the leather. This step really needs its own post because it was truly hard for me to learn about the leathermaking process. I became a vegetarian in the late 90s because I dislike the meat industry - it's bad for the planet, but I'll say this: after learning about leathermaking, I feel better for the animals (leather is really a byproduct of the much bigger meat industry), but I feel worse for the humans who work in it. More on this later...

Step 4: Receive a giant order of 8 leather hides.

After ordering our hides, I was shocked to receive them only a few days later out of Fort Worth, TX. Of course, they would come from there. Tandy Leather runs its headquarters out of Fort Worth, home of the Stockyards, a historic livestock market. The box was HUGE, and the hides, when rolled out, looked like...hides. I don't know why I was shocked by this. They were smooth and cool to the touch and had that leather smell to them. I ordered 4 black ones (dyed) and 4 natural ones (probably bleached a bit to give that buttery pale color.)

Step 5: Prepare the patterns.

Every student got a paper pattern to cut out and adapt to their feet. Kids with longer or wider feet had to expand the pattern a bit with extra paper and tape. Once done, they visited the leather cut-out station where I myself placed their pattern on the leather hides and roughly cut them out. This was the one job I felt I should do for them to make sure we used the leather wisely and did not run out. Our leather was expensive (a little more than $1000), and I wanted to honor the spirit of our leather.

Step 6: Trace the patterns.

Each student taped their paper pattern to their leather, and then they used a blue ink pen to trace their pattern on the rough side of the leather. (Not exactly Roman for sure, but we discussed how the Romans might have achieved this task.) This process was time-consuming. Once one shoe was traced, they flipped the pattern over, taped it down to the leather again, and traced it on their leather. This process allowed for a LEFT and RIGHT shoe pretty easily.

Step 7: Cut the patterns out.

Oh my Zeus. This process seemed to take FOREVER - it happened around the time of the "flurricane" in Louisiana. When we returned from being out of school for a whole week, an endless stream of rescheduled events and special programs started up. Some days, only half the class was present. Some days, the whole class was present, but we only met for half the time. Some students can't physically use scissors. And yes, we learned that the Romans would have used very sharp leather knives to cut their patterns, but scissors were a much safer option for young students. Faster students offered help to students with less fine motor skills too.

Step 8: Tool the leather.

In this step, students punched holes in the leather to pass their laces through, but they also decorated their leather. Some chose punched designs that surprised me with their intricacy. Others used stamps. We had learned about the stamped shoe found at Vindolanda that touted the shoemaker's name.

Step 9: Sew the heels.

Most of my students had never sewed anything before. In fact, in the final survey for the project, most students wrote that they were proud of themselves for learning to sew, a skill they knew nothing about until this class. Sewing leather can be complicated if the holes are not big enough for the needle to pass through as leather is sinewy. The Romans would have used animal sinew to sew their shoes. I had ordered some that I hoped we would use for this process, but the combination of teaching novice sewers to sew with a tricky "fabric" conquered my dream of authenticity. I ended up punching through every single pair of shoes with a multi-pronged awl to speed the process. Did my arm nearly fall off by the end of that day? Yes. Did it get the job done? Also yes. It's times like these that really help me to understand the physical work of ancient craftspeople. Once the heels had holes in the right places to allow for a flap fold in the pattern, students who picked up sewing more quickly had their shoes in no time at all. They volunteered to help their less experienced friends too.

Step 10: Lace the shoes.

This step went so quickly. In fact, I passed off my job of cutting leather straps to a "lace expert" student while I helped with sewing. As soon as heels got sewn up, it was nearly impossible for the students not to try on their shoes right away. As they would prance over with the shoes all laced up on their feet, I squealed nearly every single time. I seriously wanted to cry.

Step 11: Tighten up the fit.

The beauty of this pattern is that it can be fit to any crazy-sized foot - slender, double-wide, super long. The lace in the front was easy to adjust.

The Roman Shoe Project: Tiny Animal Tracks

One of the absolute cutest things I've ever seen at a Roman museum is this little leather scrap mouse.

Found in a box of leather offcuts or scraps, the mouse is about as long as my hand, and it has little tiny cuts that were made to look like fur. Was it meant as a toy for a child, or a joke from one leather craftsman to another? No one knows.

As my students learned to work leather in the beginning of our project, we read about this little mouse on p.91 in the new book 50 Objects from Vindolanda (I'll be reviewing it later this month) by Barbara Birley and Elizabeth Greene. The book is full of wonderfully intriguing objects that leave the reader wanting more.

As the students got started with leather working, they practiced casing (wetting) leather so that it could receive stamping. They designed their cuffs by tracing them and then sketching their ideas out on paper. This process helped them to familiarize themselves with the available stamps and experiment with the tools and process. One famous leather shoe, found in Vindolanda, and discussed on p.19 in the aforementioned book, contains the stamp of its maker! Probably what modern people might call a "designer shoe," the Lepidina sandal contains a number of decorative stamps and one that says "Lucius Aebutius Thales." It's probably the very first designer mark in history!

I was shocked at some of the cuff patterns and designs my students came up with - they are infinitely creative so I took some cute pics of them. I was also shocked at how loud my classroom became when 25 students started banging away at leather stamps with their hammers. You can hear 7 seconds of that in this short video. Imagine that times 1 hour. Enjoy!

When students were done with their cuffs, I tasked them with tooling scrap leather to look like an animal of their choice. And they came up with such cute lil cuties!! I'm constantly amazed at their ideas. When given the proper tools and instruction, young students can really do big things!

The Roman Shoe Project: A Guest Speaker from Left Field

At the beginning of the school year, our school district asked all teachers and students to take a RIASEC assessment. I had never heard of RIASEC before. In case you haven't either, it's a personality test based on the work of mid-century psychologist John Holland who believed that people are happiest when they have jobs that align with their personalities. I was none too surprised that I tested as a SOCIAL person, one who enjoys helping others and teaching. If you want to see the other categories and their matched careers, you can look here. Because Louisiana graduation rates are some of the lowest in our country, our district likes its middle schools to introduce careers to our students whenever we can. I must admit, I didn't seriously think about what I wanted to be until I was in college. I wish I had met an archaeologist sooner. It may have changed my mind...

That's the idea behind my principal's push to get professionals in our classrooms whenever we can - get kids thinking. So when I asked my Facebook friends who work with leather if they would consider to talking to my students, I got an unexpected surprise. My former colleague's husband runs a wonderful business called "The Glove Doctor." Chad Chenevert repairs leather baseball and softball gloves! And he was SO gracious to visit with my students to talk about his work.

Did you know that leather gloves can last for the entire career of a player? Did you know that they can cost 100s of dollars? Here's one you probably knew, but I'm just so out of this loop that I didn't know. Gloves are specialized based on the position of the player! It makes total sense, but I really didn't know that. You can probably tell that I love to learn about pretty much everything. In addition to all this cool information, Chad presented to the kids on the history of baseball gloves and even talked about leather tanning too. Then, he told the story of how he got into fixing gloves for his son's teammates and eventually for LSU players and even some professionals. 

After the kids asked him a million questions, Chad showed the kids some of the tools he uses to repair gloves and condition new ones. They loved this wooden mallet, used to break in new gloves. He also let them look at the different colored leather cord available for stringing gloves. Some players like to get their gloves strung in the colors of their school.

Overall, it was fascinating to see that the tools Chad uses to work with leather are nearly the same as the ones used by ancient shoemakers: awls, knives, needles. Chad's wife Michelle, a tech guru at my old school, made the above image for us using AI. The kids got the biggest kick out of it, but I thought it was perfect - even though the Romans would not have used baseball gloves, it's a great reminder of the similarities between ancient and modern leatherworking.

Asking working adults to spend half a day away from their work to talk to my students is hard for me. I honestly hate to do it because I know that everyone is busy, but I have never had an adult say that they didn't enjoy sharing what they do with the students. And the kids had a blast learning about this unique work. 

Thanks a million to Chad for being so generous with his time and knowledge. If you need a glove doctor, he should be your first stop.

The Roman Shoe Project: Baby Steps with BULLAE

With all the fascinating information out there about ancient Roman leather shoes, I knew that I would have plenty of lessons to share with my students. But, we needed to start small so the kids could learn how to work with leather and its traditional tools.

Our first project was making our own Roman bullae. These ceremonial necklaces were given to children at age 9. The archaeological record gives us numerous ones made of gold and goldplate, but a couple of Roman authors refer to ones made of leather. You can see our notes on these (and some pictures in this slide deck). Female students were happy to learn of the existence of the lunula, given to girls with the same purpose in mind.

My first step was to create a pattern for both shapes so that students could choose either one (you can see that pattern here). Although ancient children would not have had a choice, ancient children would not have been making their own leather bulla either so I figured why not? I had several students choose the opposite shape because they simply liked the way the shape looked. They also needed practice with tracing a pattern since most students had no sewing experience. For this project, we used thin-tempered (pliable) chrome-tanned scrap leather that is available from craft stores for very cheap (this bag is only $10).

From the get-go, I knew that I would not be teaching my students about leather-working knives because they are a bit too sharp for my liking. I don't normally shy away from sharp tools (my students are learning how to use awls, for example), but knives seemed a step too far. Thus, we've been practicing with scissors. And if you're using scissors in your classes, I hope you're training your students how to walk safely and slowly when retrieving these for use. Before we began this unit on leatherworking, I had each of my students take notes on the different tools and how to use them safely and then commit on paper with a safety pledge. Advice from someone who uses tools often in class - never skimp on safety.

After tracing the patterns onto leather, the students got to work on cutting them out. The next step was to learn how to use leather punches and awls to make holes where the bullae and lunulae would be sewn up around the edges. They folded the pattern over so that their holes would be in the same spots on both sides of the leather. Did they do this properly? Not in all cases, but this was part of the reason why I wanted them to practice on a smaller project first...before we use expensive leather for our shoes.

Next, the students had to sew their leather necklaces shut. Did students need lots of help threading needles and using thread? Of course. Did that stop me from doing this project? Nope. Some projects test my patience and that of my students, but is that a deciding factor? Nope. Students (and teachers) need to practice patience and resilience.

Last, the students chose special objects to put in their necklace pouches. One student chose a silver dollar his dad had given him for good luck. Another chose a crystal he had been keeping on his desk at home. I wish we had more evidence about what the Romans put in theirs.

All in all, this project was a good one to introduce the students to simple leather working tools and techniques. It also yielded wearable items! I see my students wearing them all the time as if they are super proud of them. As they should be.

Note to teachers looking to replicate this project, but without the tools or actual leather: former Latin teacher Ginny Lindzey has a great lesson on it posted on her Website in which she uses foil to recreate the bullae.

The Roman Shoe Project: Stepping into Hands-on History

I've been MIA from blogging for the past couple of months because this project has demanded my full attention. We have really been busy. Let me start from the beginning!

During the pandemic, I became a huge fan of watching online lectures by archaeologists. The Archaeological Institute of America offered (and still does) monthly lectures for free, and it was at one of these that I learned of the leather collection at the site of Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall in northern England. Dr. Elizabeth M. Greene spoke about the Roman shoes that she has excavated through years of work there. She explained that the soil of Vindolanda is particularly anaerobic and preserves leather very well. Archaeologists have found hundreds of shoes at this site, once a fort and town on the edge of the empire. Some of the shoes, found in a waste area of the town, had been discarded by those moving on to other places. Some may have been lost. Some were found with their twin. I was intrigued by these shoes and the stories they might tell us.

Shockingly, the shoes look almost modern. It's pretty easy to see how they were designed and tooled. I immediately began thinking about how I could incorporate ancient leathercraft into my Roman Technology classes. In years past, the students have made their own leather bullae, or childhood protective amulets. They used small leather punches to make holes in scrap leather I purchased, and then they sewed the little pouches shut with twine, enclosing a special tiny object for themselves before putting on their necklaces. "Could we make shoes too?" I started to wonder.

In the summer of 2023, I was fortunate to receive a travel scholarship from the National Latin Exam. I designed my own trip to Roman Britain, and of course, Vindolanda was on my list. I wanted to see its famed shoes myself! You can peruse my collection of leather shoe photographs here.

When I arrived for my visit to the archaeological site, I was touched to see this sign at the entrance. It REALLY got me thinking about studying shoes. The old adage goes, "Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes." My students can learn deeply about the daily lives of the Romans we study by recreating their shoes.

Most information about the classical world comes from literature written by wealthy, upper-class male citizens. They had the time and resources to write about their lives. But what about the others? Women, children, enslaved people, craftspeople? I want my students to learn about them too. Hands-on history projects like creating leather shoes allow students a window into the daily lives of people whose voices aren't often heard in literature.

So, can we do it? The students will be learning about the sources of leather in the ancient world, about the tanning process, about the craftspeople who made shoes, and about the people who wore them. We'll then design and craft our own Roman-style leather sandals or boots before experimenting with their use in our daily lives. We'll be making "footsteps into the past."

This Year in Roman Technology: Celebrating the End of the Semester with Food Technology

When I told my students that we would be studying Roman food processing and technology, they were super excited. Teenagers like to eat! It all started way back a the beginning of the semester, and nothing went as planned.

Way back in August, after we painted, crashed, and then reconstructed little gardening pots to learn about potsherds in archaeology, we decided to recycle our pots for growing seeds. We had a plan in place to grow Roman herbs that we could use for our food unit in December. It all started with a book I had picked up in England when I visited in 2023 to do a self-directed tour of Roman Britain (see my Website here). Ryley's Roman Gardens and Their Plants intrigued me because not only were the illustrations beautiful, but they also contained information about the uses of each plant and their origins. I've also long been a fan of archaeologist Wilhelmina Jashemski's plant root casting in Pompeii. If you haven't heard of her work, look here for fascinating information about how archaeologists identified plants long gone from the gardens of ancient Roman cities. Before we ate Roman food, I wanted the students to have a little bit of information about how the Romans grew that food. What better way to learn than to do!

After a short presentation on Roman gardening (in which I told the students that to remain authentic to Roman methodology, I had saved my poop to use as fertilizer for our project - don't worry, they only believed me for a few seconds until I couldn't hold back a smile), the students used their pots to plant celery, parsley, fennel, oregano, thyme, sage, basil, etc. Here's where the plan went awry. A certain woodworking volunteer (who may or may not have been my dad) was supposed to deliver some raised gardening beds to our school. Unfortunately, he didn't get them to us in time before our little sprouting seeds died. Luckily, at this time in the year, my students were caught up in catapult design so they weren't too disappointed.

Seeds sprouting into Roman herbs

We picked back up with our food unit in late November in a lesson on wine production and tasting. Now...before you think I actually serve wine to middle school kids, just know that I tell them to tell their parents that. Just for a laugh. We use grape juice. I make mulsum (honeyed wine) by boiling the grape juice and dissolving the honey into it. Which reminds me...have you ever read Apicius' recipe for mulsum? The amount of honey needed boggles the mind and has to be wrong, but I digress. Recipes are a great way to introduce the students to the Apicius tradition.

After a lesson on wine production technology, the students taste the "wine," to which we add different seasonings found in Apicius: pepper, coriander, and toasted barley. The students really enjoy this experience because they think peppered wine will taste terrible. (It doesn't!) I grind the ingredients fresh in my classroom mortar and see if they can guess what they are by the smell. How many lessons do we teach where the nose and the tongue do the learning? Not enough!

Next up, it's Roman bread - so many archaeological sources for bread and grain grinding technology! And I can't write this post without thinking of the amazing Farrell Monaco, experimental food archaeologist, who has covered panis quadratus and many other ancient bread recipes and techniques. You should read her blog regularly if you're interested in exarc. For our lesson, we followed her recipe for Cato's grape must biscuits.

A ball of Cato's grape must biscuit dough

Since I wanted to have the kids create their own food as much as possible, I had to divide up the recipe into 25 parts per class. I'm glad I enjoyed math as much as I did in high school and college - I needed it! It was around this time that my classroom sink decided to be clogged which required us to take not one but two trips to the hall bathroom for hand-washing sessions. It's times like these that I'm grateful for our custodian, Mr. Chris, who is the G.O.A.T. anticipating what we need to make our classes work. Before mixing our ingredients, we studied the harsh conditions that enslaved people and animals endured in the grain mills. To see what grinding grain was like, the students ground different grains in mortars with pestles - not exactly like the ancient method, but the hardness of the grain was a surprise to them. We used a little of the ground-up grain in our biscuit recipe.

Grinding grain is hard work.

Our next lesson was all about Roman bread ovens and how they worked. We studied the Tomb of the Baker and ovens that were excavated in Pompeii. It was then time for the most exciting lesson of the unit: baking our biscuits in hand-made ovens. I learned to make these surprisingly effective cardboard ovens in Girl Scouts - they work SO well. The kids lined the inside of large copy-paper boxes with foil to protect the cardboard from heat. Then, we placed metal pie pans filled with charcoal underneath them. Over the charcoal, we rested the biscuit pans on recycled soda cans filled with water (for weight). If you've never seen one, take a look at this video. The simple technology in these ovens simulates the Roman ones easily. Parents helped to get the charcoal lit and ready to go while the students prepared their biscuits for baking. We had SUCH a good time! But we weren't done learning.

Baking Cato's grape must biscuits in our cardboard ovens.

Our last lesson was one I adapted from a participant in last summer's nerd camp: The Ancient Olympics and Daily Life in Ancient Olympia: A Hands-On History. I co-directed this K-12 Summer Institute sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities last July, and one of the best things about it was inspiring and guiding the teacher participants in developing their own hands-on history lessons. One of those participants, Catherine Daun of Cicero Preparatory Academy in Scottsdale, Arizona, did a wonderful lesson on Roman cheesemaking. I enjoyed it so much that I promised myself I'd use aspects of it in my Roman Tech class this year. It was a perfect addition to our food unit! Making the cheese was so much easier than I expected - basically, boil some milk and then add vinegar as a coagulant at the end. The curds appear as if by magic, floating to the top of the whey. After learning about Roman cheese-pressing technology, the students pressed their own cheese right in class before seasoning it and eating it on their biscuits. 

Squeezing some cheese

Now, I'm sitting here watching them take a short test on our food unit. They had to write about what foods and drinks they would serve at their own Roman dinner banquet. It was a scene! We now transition to our big experimental archaeology unit on ancient Roman leather shoes, starting in January. I'm almost too tired. Almost.