Not only for a surprisingly long time, but also in surprisingly good condition. For example at Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall archeologists have found not one or two, or even ten but over 5000 amazingly preserved Roman shoes that were apparently thrown away into the fortress's moat and survived buried in the mud <https://www.vindolanda.com/Blog/the-curators-favourite-shoes>.
Hilariously they're never found a pair of shoes, only singles. So that's why they think they were thrown away as rubbish, because one shoe broke so they threw it in the ditch. In the museum on site there's a fantastic "wall of shoes" on display where you can see the amazing leatherwork from 2000 years ago <https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/37305>.
alt Hacker News
Not only for a surprisingly long time, but also in surprisingly good condition. For example at Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall archeologists have found not one or two, or even ten but over 5000 amazingly preserved Roman shoes that were apparently thrown away into the fortress's moat and survived buried in the mud <https://www.vindolanda.com/Blog/the-curators-favourite-shoes>.
Hilariously they're never found a pair of shoes, only singles. So that's why they think they were thrown away as rubbish, because one shoe broke so they threw it in the ditch. In the museum on site there's a fantastic "wall of shoes" on display where you can see the amazing leatherwork from 2000 years ago <https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/37305>.