The Roman Road Project - The Mud That Was out for Blood

Does this man's marching boot from the Roman fort at Vindolanda in northern England look like it could sustain use in wet, muddy areas? I'm skeptical. And I've been thinking about this issue a lot lately due to the weather in Louisiana.

I often wonder how much easier it would have been to build our little road back in October when it didn't rain for almost 6 weeks. I wonder about that a lot because right around the time we started building in mid-January, it rained nearly every day. Like clockwork, it rained, and rained, and then rained some more. It was nice to work in cooler weather, but the rain caused a massive amount of mud. So. Much. Mud. To add insult to injury, the area our road passes through is basically a swamp. After all, that's the reason we're building the road - to give our students and teachers another route through the school that wasn't possible before.

Here's one of the large puddles:

It got so bad sometimes, that we actually got stuck in it. "That mud is out for blood" was our joke. My little 6th graders often complained about getting stuck, and I didn't really believe them until I myself got my boot almost pulled off my foot by the mud. Luckily, a nearby 8th-grade boy pulled me out. We all wore rubber boots to keep our feet clean (thanks to a grant, I was able to purchase shared boots), but our pants nearly always ended up with splatters. There was very little chance of not getting dirty on this project.

At the end of each class, I apologized profusely to our custodian, Mr. Shawn, who had to sweep up all the dirt and mud we dragged into the building after each building session. My classroom had all the makings of a disaster. Muddy boots came in, and then dried out and flaked off large chunks of dirt which the evening custodian, Mrs. Geraldine, swept up. When I told my students about how bad I felt about dirtying up the floors that others had to clean up, they suggested buying special gift cards for our custodians. What a magnificent idea! This project has forced my students and I to think through so many details.

If we're having trouble dealing with mud with modern rubber boots to help us, what did the Romans do? Archaeologists have found many leather boots and shoes at the Roman fort at Vindolanda along Hadrian's Wall in England. None of them look even remotely similar to boots that we wear to trudge through the mud. And there MUST have been mud in ancient Britain. Even if Roman soldiers had boots high enough to protect them from mud puddles, how would the leather have performed in such wet conditions? And where would they clean off the leather boots they wore for these projects? The whole prospect of it gives me fits to consider. It must have been a big old mess.

And that leads me to think about our next big project in Roman Technology class. Shoes - studying them, exploring leather tools used to make them, designing them, and actually building our own Roman sandals. I hope to visit Vindolanda's shoe collection this summer to get inspiration. Sometimes, the technology we study may seem mundane, but imagine living your life without shoes as an ancient Roman soldier. Impossible without Roman technology!

Here's my own shoe in the mud: