Medieval man died with his boots on

He was found lying on his front, his head twisted to the side. An arm was bent above his head while the other remained straight at his side. As he lay entrenched in the mud of London’s Thames river, unknown to the world for almost 500 years, his clothes had decayed and washed away.

Except for his thigh-high boots.

Archeologists say they discovered the medieval skeleton still wearing his boots, while working on the Thames Tideway tunnel, a project to update the city’s sewage network.

“It’s extremely rare to find any boots from the late 15th century, let alone a skeleton still wearing them,” Beth Richardson of the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) told National Geographic.

While archeologists say it’s not unusual to find artifacts turn up on the rivershore, the style and wear of the boots made the find all the more unusual. The boots were made of leather, stitched with wax flax thread, unheeled, with a single, flat sole reinforced with “clump soles” at the front and back.

“But what is unusual about these boots is that we never find high boots like this — they are always shoes or ankle boots,” Richardson added. “High boots are just not very common throughout medieval times, and actually Tudor times and the 17th century as well. If you look at pictures or illuminated manuscripts or portraits, very few people are wearing boots.”

The length of the boot suggests that the man probably worked in or around the river as a dock worker, fisherman or sailor, using the boots as waders. Mariners of the time were known to wear long boots, Richardson explained. Distinctive grooves in the man’s teeth, who was believed to have died when he was 35 years old, also supports this theory.