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WORLD'S OLDEST LEATHER SHOE UNEARTHED IN ARMENIA
Regional Times
http://regionaltimes.com/14jun2010/nationalnews/world.htm
June 14 2010
WASHINGTON: It might not be by Prada, and you won't see its like in
Bloomingdale's. But if you'd been seen stepping out of a cave some
5,500 years ago, your leather shoes would have been literally high
fashion indeed, way up in the Armenian mountains.
A brown leather lace-up unearthed in eastern Armenia has been dubbed
the oldest leather shoe ever found, predating the Great Pyramid of
Giza by 1,000 years and 400 years older than Stonehenge.
Made from a single piece of cowhide, it's in such good condition that
even the leather laces are still intact, thanks to the cave's cool
and dry conditions. It was even found stuffed with grass, either to
keep the foot warm or to serve as a kind of shoe tree.
Archaeologists have concluded that the shoe was made for the right
foot. Its small size -- the equivalent of a U.S. woman's size 7 --
suggests it was worn by a woman, but researchers say it could also
have fitted a man of those times. "This is great luck," said the
archaeologist who led the research team, Ron Pinhasi of University
College Cork in Ireland.
"We normally only find broken pots," he told newsmen, but discovering
the shoe "gives us a real glimpse into society." In the study's
findings published in the journal PLoS One, Pinhasi said the good
condition of the shoe and other objects found in the cave, unearthed
near the border with Turkey and Iran, made them think they were about
600 to 700 years old.
But after samples of the shoe were radiocarbon-dated at Oxford
University and the University of California-Irvine, "we discovered
that the shoe dated back to 3,500 B.C. and that it was the oldest
leather shoe. We were very excited," Pinhasi said. The shoe is
older than those found on the mummified remains of "Otzi the Iceman"
discovered in 1991 in the Alps on the Austria-Italy border. He lived
about 5,300 years ago.
In some ways, Pinhasi said, the shoe is similar to the so-called
"pampooties" worn on the Aran Islands in the west of Ireland until
the 1950s. The other objects found included a broken pot and horns
of either goats or sheep, which along with the shoe were covered in
a thick layer of sheep dung, effectively acting as a preservative.
"We do not know yet what the shoe or other objects were doing in the
cave or what the purpose of the cave was," Pinhasi told London's Daily
Mail. "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."
The cave is on the edge of the so-called Fertile Crescent, credited
with being home to the world's first towns and farms. The shoe may have
been made locally or traded with towns and villages in Mesopotamia,
Pinhasi told the Mail.
From: A. Papazian
Regional Times
http://regionaltimes.com/14jun2010/nationalnews/world.htm
June 14 2010
WASHINGTON: It might not be by Prada, and you won't see its like in
Bloomingdale's. But if you'd been seen stepping out of a cave some
5,500 years ago, your leather shoes would have been literally high
fashion indeed, way up in the Armenian mountains.
A brown leather lace-up unearthed in eastern Armenia has been dubbed
the oldest leather shoe ever found, predating the Great Pyramid of
Giza by 1,000 years and 400 years older than Stonehenge.
Made from a single piece of cowhide, it's in such good condition that
even the leather laces are still intact, thanks to the cave's cool
and dry conditions. It was even found stuffed with grass, either to
keep the foot warm or to serve as a kind of shoe tree.
Archaeologists have concluded that the shoe was made for the right
foot. Its small size -- the equivalent of a U.S. woman's size 7 --
suggests it was worn by a woman, but researchers say it could also
have fitted a man of those times. "This is great luck," said the
archaeologist who led the research team, Ron Pinhasi of University
College Cork in Ireland.
"We normally only find broken pots," he told newsmen, but discovering
the shoe "gives us a real glimpse into society." In the study's
findings published in the journal PLoS One, Pinhasi said the good
condition of the shoe and other objects found in the cave, unearthed
near the border with Turkey and Iran, made them think they were about
600 to 700 years old.
But after samples of the shoe were radiocarbon-dated at Oxford
University and the University of California-Irvine, "we discovered
that the shoe dated back to 3,500 B.C. and that it was the oldest
leather shoe. We were very excited," Pinhasi said. The shoe is
older than those found on the mummified remains of "Otzi the Iceman"
discovered in 1991 in the Alps on the Austria-Italy border. He lived
about 5,300 years ago.
In some ways, Pinhasi said, the shoe is similar to the so-called
"pampooties" worn on the Aran Islands in the west of Ireland until
the 1950s. The other objects found included a broken pot and horns
of either goats or sheep, which along with the shoe were covered in
a thick layer of sheep dung, effectively acting as a preservative.
"We do not know yet what the shoe or other objects were doing in the
cave or what the purpose of the cave was," Pinhasi told London's Daily
Mail. "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."
The cave is on the edge of the so-called Fertile Crescent, credited
with being home to the world's first towns and farms. The shoe may have
been made locally or traded with towns and villages in Mesopotamia,
Pinhasi told the Mail.
From: A. Papazian