World’s Oldest Shoes: Some Look Surprisingly Modern

MessageToEagle.com  – More than 700 years ago today, on May 20, 1310, shoes were made for the first time for both right and left feet. Prior to that, unfortunately, they weren’t.

Archaeologists have discovered several very old shoes in many parts of the world. Some of the shoes are thousands of years old and in remarkably good condition. Here we present some of the oldest shoes discovered world-wide and as you can see, some of them look surprisingly modern.

The Areni-1 shoe: World’s Oldest Shoe Was Found In A Cave In Armenia

The world’s oldest shoe was discovered in Armenian cave and is around 5,500 years old. It’s older than the ancient Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge. Known as the Areni-1 shoe, the moccasin-like shoe is compressed in the heel and toe area, likely due to miles upon miles of walking. However, the shoe is by no means worn out and it’s still in very good condition. Researchers and designers have emphasized it is astonishing how much this shoe resembles a modern shoe.

Iceman Ötzi’s Shoes

The Iceman Ötzi’s shoes were long regarded as the oldest known shoes, until the discoveryof the 5,500-yeals old Armenian shoes. Ötzi’s  shoes are of a sophisticated design and consist of an inner and outer part.

The inner shoe is composed of grass netting. Its purpose was to hold hay in place which served as insulation material. The outer part is made of deerskin. Both parts – the grass netting and the leather upper – are fastened to an oval-shaped sole made of bearskin by means of leather straps. Unlike the sole, the uppers were worn with the fur on the outside. The shaft around the ankle was bound with grass fibres.

World’s Oldest Sandals Were Discovered In Fort Rock Cave, Oregon

The word sandal derives from the Greek word sandal. The ancient Greeks distinguished between baxeae (sing. baxea), a sandal made of willow leaves, twigs, or fibres worn by comic actors and philosophers; and the cothurnus, a boot sandal that rose above the middle of the leg, worn principally by tragic actors, horsemen, hunters, and by men of rank and authority. The sole of the latter was sometimes made much thicker than usual by the insertion of slices of cork, so as to add to the stature of the wearer.

Sandals were popular among ancient Egyptians. They wore sandals made of palm-leaves and papyrus.

See also:

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Tarkhan Dress – The World’s Oldest Woven Garment

The world’s oldest sandals were discovered in 1938, anthropologist Luther Cressman in Fort Rock Cave, Oregon, United States. Cressman came across dozens of sandals and fragments of sandals inside the cave. They were found beneath a layer of volcanic ash, which was later identified as coming from the eruption of Mount Mazama. Cressman believed that the sandals were ancient, but because radiocarbon dating would not be developed for another decade, his conviction would not be confirmed until 1951, when fibers from the sandals themselves were dated to more than 9,000 years old. Fort Rock sandals are made of shredded sagebrush bark. They are twined, with pairs of fiber wefts twisted around passive warps, in contrast to simple over-and-under interlacing or plaiting, known as wickerwork.

Oldest Shoe Discovered In Canada

The oldest shoe discovered in Canada is a 1,400-year old made of deerskin found in a glacier region.

Who Did These Ancient Foreign Shoes Belong To?

These shoes are not as old as the others presented in this article, but they are intriguing so we added them to the list.

In 2004, an Italian archaeological team discovered ancient shoes that were deliberately hidden in an Egyptian temple.

The two pairs of children’s shoes were among the seven found concealed in a jar placed into a cavity between two mudbrick walls in a temple in Luxor, site of the ancient city of Thebes.

Oddly, the shoes were tied together using palm fibre string and placed within a single adult shoe. A third pair that had been worn by an adult was found alongside them. The shoes were obviously of foreign origin, as they were concealed at the time when most Egyptians would normally have worn sandals. The shoes were expensive and in pristine condition, at least at the time of discovery. Unfortunately, after they were unearthed the shoes became brittle and ‘extremely fragile’,

Who the owner of the shoes was has never been determined. “The shoes were eye-striking at the time. If you wore such shoes “everybody would look at you”, wrote Dr Veldmeijer assistant director of the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo and an expert in ancient Egyptian footwear in the Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt.

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