At the Hadrian’s Wall, an interesting find was done – four Roman horseshoes (the so-called soleae ferreae). The discovery took place in the famous Vindoland camp.
Vindolanda is located in the city of Hexham, in the north of England. The discovery was made by a volunteer supporting excavations. The horseshoes are dated 140-180 CE. Those objects have survived to this day in such good condition, because the ground in which they were located had very little oxygen, and therefore they were not destroyed.
Roman hoof protective covers are an early version of later horseshoes. They were mainly used when horses were used in mountainous, rocky terrain.