A unique wooden clog has been discovered in a 15th century cesspit in the Dutch city of Alkmaar. Although wooden shoes are icons of Dutch culture, only 44 of them have been found in excavations in the Netherlands and Belgium. Most of them are more recent and in worse condition. This one is made of birch wood, the only wooden shoe on the Dutch archaeological record made from birch, a tree which does not grow in the Netherlands.
The heeled clog was found in parts, but the wood was well-preserved by the waterlogged, anaerobic conditions of the cesspit. After a thorough cleaning of the pieces of the shoe, archaeologists were able to piece it back together and it is basically complete. It has a double heel, an elegant touch that is not found in the more common, rustic models. Its quality and its context in an urban environment indicate this was not a work clog of the kind used by farmers that are the typical examples of the Dutch wooden shoe, but rather a shoe worn for daily use in the city. The shoe size is about a modern European size 36, (a women’s size 5.5 in the US).
The cesspit was discovered in November during construction of an underground waste container, appropriately enough. It was in use from around 1450 to 1558. At that time, almost every home or townhouse had a cesspit used to hold human waste, but also for food and household waste. That’s how things like shoes could wind up in one.
One other unique wooden artifact was found in this cesspit: a grain measure, a round shallow bucket used to, well, measure grain. It was made of thin oak that survived almost intact in the cesspit. Only five fragments of grain measures have been found before in the Netherlands and Belgium. This is the only virtually complete medieval Dutch grain measure ever found. Before this discovery, we only knew what they looked like from images.
The clog and the grain measure will be stabilized, conserved and studied further. If possible, they will be restored, their broken pieces put back together by a non-invasive method and the objects put on display.
