Big shoes => big feet.

Alternatively, perhaps the shoes were winter boots that were meant to be worn with several pairs of socks or some kind of insulation. This theory, Penn writes, is supported by a preserved letter that refers to socks and underpants being sent to a soldier stationed there. Historians also know that archers from Syria lived at Magna, and it’s safe to assume that these men would not have been accustomed to the cold climate of northern England, he adds.

I think this is my favorite theory

Archaeologist Flint Dibble covered this, interviewing the actual archaeologist who works with this stuff. She definitely has ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps7lpR7nL5I

They had big feet?

Biggus Dickus' shoes.

Hey Nero look how big i made this shoe hahahahahaha

I mean ... maybe they had to keep some uniforms there for new recruits. and the biggest sandals rarely got used and got left behind when Rome abandoned the isles ?

Since May, archaeologists working at Magna have unearthed eight massive leather shoes that each measure more than 11.8 inches long.

So four pairs? Was there one gigantic dude there that kept losing his shoes?

Big dick is the likely explanation.

Spoiler alert: it was the main clown college in the Roman empire.

But seriously, that's interesting.

They just wanted the shoes to last. Make they quality. Many layers.

Gigantic? Massive? I was expecting hilariously big sizes, turned out to be my shoe size. Wtf. Is that insane that this particular fort had conscripts that were selected just because they were taller? Other cultures have preferred taller, bulkier soldiers, why this can't be the case?

That shoe’s sole was 12.6 inches long, which is roughly the same size as a men’s 14 in the United States, reports Live Science’s Kristina Killgrove.

That is smaller than my shoe size, those scientists have a dumb frame of reference.

Not my fault everyone else has weird and tiny feet.

Time-travellling clowns.

And I'm still wondering why they are still wondering. So they are digging out oversized Caligae. You know that Caligae are? They are sandals. And they are digging them up at a fort at Hadrians Wall. Up in Scotland. Where things get cold occasionally.

Now imagine soldiers, standing guard or patrolling in the cold, wearing sandals. What would they do? They'd wrap up their feet in something warm, like lamb furs. Or cloth. But wadded up feet don't fit into standard-sized sandals designed for bare feet. Solution, rather obvious, is having oversized sandals that fit feet and insulation.

They probably hired tall dudes as guards

Oh come on archaeologist this is easy. Clearly they belong to Biggus Dickus.

Maybe they were made to psych-out their enemies.

Its the half alien hybrids from Egypt, duh.