Leather fragments from Igelsta in Roslagen have been identified as parts of Sweden’s oldest known shoe. Credit: Thomas Eriksson, Swedish History Museum/SHM, CC BY 4.0
Archaeologists have identified the oldest known shoe in Sweden after re-examining leather fragments recovered from a burial cairn in eastern Uppland more than 80 years ago. Researchers concluded that pieces excavated in 1943 from cairn A51 at the Igelsta-Västerängen cemetery in Söderby-Karl parish belonged to a Roman-era leather boot rather than unidentified animal hide. The discovery, published in the journal Fornvännen, dates to about 2,000 years ago and offers new evidence about footwear, burial customs and cultural connections between Scandinavia and the Roman world during the Iron Age.
The fragments remained in museum collections for decades before specialists reassessed them using modern archaeological methods. The study reidentified Sweden’s oldest known shoe and clarified its original context, revealing that the leather formed part of a carefully arranged burial deposit rather than an isolated object.
Sweden’s oldest shoe sheds light on Roman-era craftsmanship and burial customs
Archaeologist Harry Thålin excavated cairn A51 in 1943 at the Igelsta-Västerängen cemetery in Roslagen, eastern Uppland. The burial yielded cremated human remains alongside unburnt animal bones, fragments of a Roman bronze cauldron, drinking horn mounts, a chain, and a wooden tray. Researchers found the leather lodged between the base of the bronze vessel and the wooden tray, where copper salts leaching from the bronze created chemical conditions that preserved the fragile material for nearly two millennia.
Unlike earlier interpretations, the new study concludes that the leather belonged to a higher, closed boot designed to cover the ankle rather than a simple low-cut shoe. Its construction matches most closely the Roman footwear type known as Ramshaw I, a design documented elsewhere in northern Europe during the Roman Iron Age. Although researchers conducted DNA analysis on the leather, poor preservation limited the results. The tests nevertheless indicate that the hide probably came from either a squirrel or a member of the canid family, such as a dog or wolf.
Radiocarbon dating transformed archaeologists’ understanding of the site. Instead of representing a single burial, cairn A51 reflects at least two distinct phases. The earliest burial dates to approximately 405–209 B.C. during the Pre-Roman Iron Age, while the Roman bronze cauldron and leather boot belong to a second phase roughly two centuries later.
Archaeologists connect the burial to wider Roman influence in Scandinavia
The Roman bronze cauldron forms one of the clearest links between the grave and continental Europe. Although the Roman Empire never ruled Scandinavia, imported metal vessels, weapons and luxury goods reached communities across the region through long-distance exchange networks. The presence of the cauldron, drinking equipment and distinctive footwear places the burial within that broader pattern of contact.
Researchers do not believe the boot entered the grave by accident. Instead, they argue that someone deliberately positioned it beneath the bronze vessel before closing the cairn. They note similarities with later Scandinavian traditions known as “Hel-shoes,” in which footwear accompanied the dead as part of funerary practice. While they do not claim direct cultural continuity across the centuries, they consider the comparison one possible explanation for the symbolic role of the boot inside the grave.
Modern analytical methods reshaped the interpretation of the find. For decades, the leather fragments attracted little attention because archaeologists lacked the techniques needed to identify them confidently. Radiocarbon dating and DNA testing allowed researchers to reinterpret both the object and the burial itself.
For Sweden, the reidentified leather fragments establish the country’s earliest known shoe. They provide direct evidence that footwear, imported Roman objects and carefully structured burial rituals formed part of life in eastern Scandinavia during the Roman Iron Age, adding new detail to a period when organic materials rarely survive.