A leather shoe, stuffed with grass and fitted to the wearer's right foot, from Armenia.
Credit: PLoS ONE
SYDNEY: The oldest leather shoe yet discovered was kept in pristine condition by a thick layer of sheep dung in a cave in Armenia for 5,500 years, according an international team of archaeologists.
The sheep dung also preserved a variety of other objects, including sheep's horns and fragments of pots containing wheat, barley and apricots.
The shoe predates the leather footwear found on the preserved remains of Ötzi, the Iceman, by at least 200 years, the researchers wrote in an article published in the journal PLoS ONE. The body of Ötzi was found encased in a glacier in the Swiss/Italian alps in 1991 and is dated at 3365-3118 BC.
Oldest leather shoe known
Older footwear in the form of simple moccasins, sandals and slip-on shoes have been dated at up to 7,500 years ago and toe bone studies indicate ancient humans in Europe and the Middle East were wearing footwear around 30,000 years ago.
But this new find is the oldest of its type and the oldest leather shoe known.
The shoe laced up at the back and front but lacked a proper sole, being composed of a single strip of leather wrapped around the foot. It was discovered in 2008 in Armenia's Vayotz Dzor province on the Armenian, Iranian, Nackhichevanian and Turkish borders.
Amazing preservation
The shoe, which was upside down in the dung layer, was stuffed with grass, either in order to keep the shoe's shape, or to keep the wearer's foot warm, the team says.
"I was amazed to find that even the shoe-laces were preserved," says archaeologist Diana Zardaryan, of the Institute of Archaeology, Armenia, who made the find.
The shoe was dated using radiocarbon dating on the grass and the leather at the University of California and University of Oxford.
Shoe looks 600-700 years old
"We thought initially that the shoe and other objects were about 600-700 years old because they were in such good condition," says archaeologist Ron Pinhasi from University College Cork, Ireland, who led the research.
"We do not know yet what the shoe or other objects were doing in the cave or what the purpose of the cave was," he adds.
"We know that there are children's graves at the back of the cave but so little is known about this period that we cannot say with any certainty why all these different objects were found together."
fairy bed
Why does everything have to have a practically practical purpose.
It's obviously a fairy bed, not a shoe. My daughters make fairy beds out of my "discarded" slippers all the time and would stuff them full of straw to the same purpose while playing in a cave given half a chance.
Fairy bed?!
I hope- for your sake and that of your child- that you're joking.
Why have you had a bad
Why have you had a bad experience with a fairy? Let a child be a child.
fairy bed
but your daughters slippers were shoes originally so they still had a purpose, originally.
old shoe
Sounds just like Aylas cave in Clan of the Cave Bear. Of course the straw was to keep her feet warm while
hunting in the frigid weather...
then what was the dung for?
then what was the dung for?
I would have to think that
I would have to think that the shoes and the cave were abandoned for whatever reasons, and the sheep moved in at a later date, maybe kept penned in there at night by later societies in the region.
The shoes, might have belonged to someone who intended to come back for them...but perhaps died in an accident or something...never to return.
Hard to say why someone else didn't come along and use the shoes..perhaps there's was some superstition back then about 'walking in another's shoes' and the shoes, although in good condition was left alone due to taboos..until such time as the sheep came along...making it so that no one saw the shoes again until now.
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Stormy
I'm not surprised
Armenians are notorious for not letting their kids run barefoot. At least back when I was coming up. "Put some shoes you lookpetishan!" (shabby) was a common refrain heard by my cousins and me.
usage of dung
Dung of all kinds was used as fodder for fire. It burns well and mixed with grass or dried leaves will start a great fire...
just like today's new shoes
That's a lot of straw in the shoe. I think it may have had the same purpose as the shoe stuffing they use in shoe stores today...and if the shoes were new at the time they were lost, that would help explain their good condition.