Melrose Notes

A 2,000-year-old Roman toddler's footprint accidentally pressed into a wet red clay roof tile before it was fired in a kiln, discovered in the ancient Roman town of Vasio Vocontiorum, known today as Vaison-la-Romaine, France 🇫🇷 About 2,000 years ago, a small child somewhere in the Roman world toddled across a freshly made clay roof tile and left a perfect little footprint. Housed at the Théo Desplans Archaeological Museum (Musée archéologique Théo-Desplans) in Vaison-la-Romaine. Roman roof tiles were shaped by hand from wet clay and left outdoors to dry in the sun prior to kiln firing. A young child walked across the soft tile, leaving a clear imprint of their toes and foot. While animal prints (such as dogs, cats, or pigs) are frequently found on Roman bricks and tiles, well-preserved human child footprints are much rarer discoveries. Today the tiny footprint, toes and all, is preserved in the red clay as clearly as the day it was made. The toddler wasn't the only one. Museums across the old Roman Empire hold tiles with surprise prints. Some from Aquincum, Roman Budapest, carry the footprints of people, dogs, cats and even pigs. One tile from Alba-la-Romaine in France shows a child's sandal prints next to a cat's paw prints. Others come from the Tenth Legion's tile kilns near Nijmegen in the Netherlands. To the tile makers these marks were just small annoyances, but now they're some of the most human things to survive from Rome: a moment of everyday mischief that has lasted 2,000 years. #archaeohistories