Armenia: Discovery of Oldest Shoe in the World

PhD student Ms Diana Zardaryan of the Institute of Archaeology in Armenia, an archaelogist, found the oldest shoe in the world, with even the shoe-laces in preserved state, in a cave in the Vayotz Dzor region of Armenia, near the settlement of Areni, which is known for its wine industry. Vayotz Dzor sits on the border of Nakhichevan (An enclave of Azerbaijan) and Armenia, near the Armenian province of Ararat, which borders Turkey. The region is part of the Fertile Crescent, which is an area of the world where first civilizations began. The cave, Areni 1, is well known in the area due to its high visibility and the amount of dwellings in the cave. The 5,500 year old shoe made of cowhide and tanned with oil from a plant or vegetable was found perfectly preserved under layers of sheep dung and dates to around 3500 B.C. as validated by three seperate radiocarbon dating tests and is approximately 1000 years older than the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops), and about 400 years older than the oldest parts of Stonehenge (The area was used in rituals since ~8000 B.C. but the trench and chalk bank are from around 3100 B.C.). The previous oldest shoes in the world were found on the feet of Otzi the Iceman, a 5300 year old body found frozen in an Austrian glacier. The Areni shoe is also remarkably similar to shoe styles that were around for thousands of years after that period, looking much like the pampooties that were popular in the Aran Islands of Ireland into the 1950's. So while the Areni shoe is the oldest shoe in the world, the style has lived on for millenia. Both Otzi's shoes and the shoe from Areni, however, do not have the distinction of being the oldest known footwear in existence. The plant-fiber sandals found in Arnold Research Cave, Missouri outdate the Areni shoe by 2000-2500 years, although they are not technically shoes. Along with the shoe, the cave has yielded evidence of an ancient winemaking operation, and caches of what may be the oldest known intentionally dried fruits: apricots, grapes, prunes. The scientists, financed by the National Geographic Society and other institutions, also found skulls of three adolescents in ceramic vessels, suggesting ritualistic or religious practice. One skull even contained desiccated brain tissue older than the shoe, about 6000 years old.

Source: PanARMENIAN.Net, 11^th June 2010