This appears to be the most significant archeological discovery in the region this year: An international team of researchers have found the world’s oldest leather shoe in Armenia. In fact, the discovery happened 2 years ago but was not announced pending extensive laboratory tests.
The shoe was found in 2008 in a cave located in Vayots Dzor region, near wine-growing Areni village, along with other evidence of human occupation. Discovered in 1997, the cave is known as Areni-1.
Worn and shaped by the wearer's right foot, the shoe had been stuffed with grass, which dated to the same time as the leather of the shoe — between 5,637 and 5,387 years ago.
Near perfect preservation of the shoe was due to the cool, dry conditions of the cave in which it was found. The cave floor was also lined with sheep dung, which acted as a sealant over the discoveries.
The purpose of the cave or even the reason the shoe was in the cave, remain unknown.
With Armenia lacking modern radiocarbon test facilities, 4 samples of the shoe’s cowhide leather were sent to specialized laboratories in California, USA, and Oxford, England, for examination. Scientists there took more than 18 months to confirm that the item dates back to around 3,500 BC, an era known as the Chalcolithic period, or Copper Age.
Previously, the oldest leather shoe discovered was on the famous Otzi, the "Iceman" found frozen in the Alps, a few years ago and now preserved in Italy. Otzi has been dated to 5,375 and 5,128 years ago, a few hundred years more recent than the Armenian shoe.
Otzi's shoes were made of deer and bear leather held together by a leather strap. The Armenian shoe is made of cowhide. Older sandals have been found in a cave in Missouri, but those were made of fiber rather than leather.
A Dream Comes True
The Armenian shoe discovery, published Wednesday in PLoS One (to read, please click here), an online journal, was made beneath one of several cave chambers, when an Armenian doctoral student, Diana Zardarian (in picture, via RFE-RL), noticed a small pit of weeds. Reaching down, she touched 2 sheep horns, then an upside-down broken bowl. Under that was what felt like “an ear of a cow,” she said. “But when I took it out, I thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s a shoe.’ To find a shoe has always been my dream.”
The 27-year-old PhD student conducted excavations in Areni-1 in a team of fellow researchers of Armenia’s Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography and archaeologists from University College Cork, Ireland, and the University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
The research was funded by the National Geographic Society, the Chitjian Foundation, the Gfoeller Foundation, the Steinmetz Family Foundation, the Boochever Foundation and the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA.
Better Than a Mongol Shoe
Because the cave was also used by later civilizations, most recently by 14th-century Mongols, “my assumption was the shoe would be 600 to 700 years old,” Dr. Areshian, one of the lead scientists of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, told The New York Times.
He added that “a Mongol shoe would have been really great.” When separate laboratories dated the leather to 3653 to 3627 B.C., he said, “we just couldn’t believe that a shoe could be so ancient…These were probably quite expensive shoes, made of leather, very high quality.”
The Tip of the Iceberg
According to the experts, the Areni-1 cave may provide unprecedented information about an important and sparsely documented era: The Chalcolithic period when humans are believed to have invented the wheel, domesticated horses and produced other innovations.
Along with the shoe, Areni-1 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 also found skulls of 3 adolescents in ceramic vessels, suggesting ritualistic or religious practice; one skull, Dr. Areshian said, even contained desiccated brain tissue older than the shoe, about 6,000 years old.
“It’s sort of a Pompeii moment, except without the burning,” Mitchell Rothman, an anthropologist and Chalcolithic expert at Widener University who is not involved in the expedition told The New York Times.
“The shoe is really cool, and it’s certainly something that highlights the unbelievable kinds of discoveries at this site. The larger importance, though, is where the site itself becomes significant. You have the transition really into the modern world, the precursor to the kings and queens and bureaucrats and pretty much the whole 9 yards.”
“It’s an embarrassment of riches because the preservation is so remarkable,” said Adam T. Smith, an anthropologist at the University of Chicago who has done separate research in the cave. He said that distinguishing Chalcolithic objects from later civilizations’ artifacts in the cave had been complicated, and that “we’re still not entirely clear what the chronology is” of every discovery.
“The shoe,” he said, “is in a sense just the tip of the iceberg.”
A Real Glimpse into Society
In a telephone interview with the Associated Press, via Fox news, archaeologist Ron Pinhasi of University College Cork in Cork, Ireland, who led the research team, said ; “We normally only find broken pots, but we have very little information about the day-to-day activity" of these ancient people. What did they eat? What did they do? What did they wear? This is a chance to see this ... it gives us a real glimpse into society."
While the shoe had been worn, it wasn't worn out and unlike a lot of very old shoes, it didn't smell. Moreover, it is not clear if the grass that filled the shoe was intended as a lining or insulation, or to maintain the shape of the shoe when it was stored, according to the researchers.
The Armenian shoe was small by current standards — European size 37 or U.S. women's size 7 — but might have fit a man of that era, according to Pinhasi.
He described the shoe as a single piece of leather cut to fit the foot. The back of the shoe was closed by a lace passing through four sets of eyelets. In the front, 15 pairs of eyelets were used to lace from toe to top.
There was no reinforcement in the sole, just the one layer of soft leather. "I don't know how long it would last in rocky terrain," Pinhasi said.
He noted that the shoe is similar to a type of footwear common in the Aran Islands, west of Ireland, up until the 1950s. The Irish version, known as "pampooties" reportedly didn't last long, he said.
"In fact, enormous similarities exist between the manufacturing technique and style of this (Armenian) shoe and those found across Europe at later periods, suggesting that this type of shoe was worn for thousands of years across a large and environmentally diverse region," Pinhasi said.
The 41-year-old archaeologist hails from Israel, but has been living in Cork since 2007. He was educated in Belgium as well as Canada.
The Road Ahead
While the Armenian shoe was soft when unearthed, the leather has begun to harden now that it is exposed to air.
The shoe is currently at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in Yerevan but will be sent to laboratories in either Switzerland or Germany where it can be treated for preservation and then returned to Armenia for display in at the National Museum of History in Yerevan.
As for the young archeologists Ms. Zardarian and Mr. Pinhasi as well as all their local and international colleagues, we would like to congratulate them for this major discovery, and wish them success in their future excavations in Areni-1.
The shoe was found in 2008 in a cave located in Vayots Dzor region, near wine-growing Areni village, along with other evidence of human occupation. Discovered in 1997, the cave is known as Areni-1.
Worn and shaped by the wearer's right foot, the shoe had been stuffed with grass, which dated to the same time as the leather of the shoe — between 5,637 and 5,387 years ago.
Near perfect preservation of the shoe was due to the cool, dry conditions of the cave in which it was found. The cave floor was also lined with sheep dung, which acted as a sealant over the discoveries.
The purpose of the cave or even the reason the shoe was in the cave, remain unknown.
With Armenia lacking modern radiocarbon test facilities, 4 samples of the shoe’s cowhide leather were sent to specialized laboratories in California, USA, and Oxford, England, for examination. Scientists there took more than 18 months to confirm that the item dates back to around 3,500 BC, an era known as the Chalcolithic period, or Copper Age.
Previously, the oldest leather shoe discovered was on the famous Otzi, the "Iceman" found frozen in the Alps, a few years ago and now preserved in Italy. Otzi has been dated to 5,375 and 5,128 years ago, a few hundred years more recent than the Armenian shoe.
Otzi's shoes were made of deer and bear leather held together by a leather strap. The Armenian shoe is made of cowhide. Older sandals have been found in a cave in Missouri, but those were made of fiber rather than leather.
A Dream Comes TrueThe Armenian shoe discovery, published Wednesday in PLoS One (to read, please click here), an online journal, was made beneath one of several cave chambers, when an Armenian doctoral student, Diana Zardarian (in picture, via RFE-RL), noticed a small pit of weeds. Reaching down, she touched 2 sheep horns, then an upside-down broken bowl. Under that was what felt like “an ear of a cow,” she said. “But when I took it out, I thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s a shoe.’ To find a shoe has always been my dream.”
The 27-year-old PhD student conducted excavations in Areni-1 in a team of fellow researchers of Armenia’s Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography and archaeologists from University College Cork, Ireland, and the University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
The research was funded by the National Geographic Society, the Chitjian Foundation, the Gfoeller Foundation, the Steinmetz Family Foundation, the Boochever Foundation and the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA.
Better Than a Mongol Shoe
Because the cave was also used by later civilizations, most recently by 14th-century Mongols, “my assumption was the shoe would be 600 to 700 years old,” Dr. Areshian, one of the lead scientists of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, told The New York Times.
He added that “a Mongol shoe would have been really great.” When separate laboratories dated the leather to 3653 to 3627 B.C., he said, “we just couldn’t believe that a shoe could be so ancient…These were probably quite expensive shoes, made of leather, very high quality.”
The Tip of the IcebergAccording to the experts, the Areni-1 cave may provide unprecedented information about an important and sparsely documented era: The Chalcolithic period when humans are believed to have invented the wheel, domesticated horses and produced other innovations.
Along with the shoe, Areni-1 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 also found skulls of 3 adolescents in ceramic vessels, suggesting ritualistic or religious practice; one skull, Dr. Areshian said, even contained desiccated brain tissue older than the shoe, about 6,000 years old.
“It’s sort of a Pompeii moment, except without the burning,” Mitchell Rothman, an anthropologist and Chalcolithic expert at Widener University who is not involved in the expedition told The New York Times.
“The shoe is really cool, and it’s certainly something that highlights the unbelievable kinds of discoveries at this site. The larger importance, though, is where the site itself becomes significant. You have the transition really into the modern world, the precursor to the kings and queens and bureaucrats and pretty much the whole 9 yards.”
“It’s an embarrassment of riches because the preservation is so remarkable,” said Adam T. Smith, an anthropologist at the University of Chicago who has done separate research in the cave. He said that distinguishing Chalcolithic objects from later civilizations’ artifacts in the cave had been complicated, and that “we’re still not entirely clear what the chronology is” of every discovery.
“The shoe,” he said, “is in a sense just the tip of the iceberg.”
A Real Glimpse into Society
In a telephone interview with the Associated Press, via Fox news, archaeologist Ron Pinhasi of University College Cork in Cork, Ireland, who led the research team, said ; “We normally only find broken pots, but we have very little information about the day-to-day activity" of these ancient people. What did they eat? What did they do? What did they wear? This is a chance to see this ... it gives us a real glimpse into society."
While the shoe had been worn, it wasn't worn out and unlike a lot of very old shoes, it didn't smell. Moreover, it is not clear if the grass that filled the shoe was intended as a lining or insulation, or to maintain the shape of the shoe when it was stored, according to the researchers.
The Armenian shoe was small by current standards — European size 37 or U.S. women's size 7 — but might have fit a man of that era, according to Pinhasi.
He described the shoe as a single piece of leather cut to fit the foot. The back of the shoe was closed by a lace passing through four sets of eyelets. In the front, 15 pairs of eyelets were used to lace from toe to top.
There was no reinforcement in the sole, just the one layer of soft leather. "I don't know how long it would last in rocky terrain," Pinhasi said.
He noted that the shoe is similar to a type of footwear common in the Aran Islands, west of Ireland, up until the 1950s. The Irish version, known as "pampooties" reportedly didn't last long, he said.
"In fact, enormous similarities exist between the manufacturing technique and style of this (Armenian) shoe and those found across Europe at later periods, suggesting that this type of shoe was worn for thousands of years across a large and environmentally diverse region," Pinhasi said.
The 41-year-old archaeologist hails from Israel, but has been living in Cork since 2007. He was educated in Belgium as well as Canada.
The Road Ahead
While the Armenian shoe was soft when unearthed, the leather has begun to harden now that it is exposed to air.
The shoe is currently at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in Yerevan but will be sent to laboratories in either Switzerland or Germany where it can be treated for preservation and then returned to Armenia for display in at the National Museum of History in Yerevan.
As for the young archeologists Ms. Zardarian and Mr. Pinhasi as well as all their local and international colleagues, we would like to congratulate them for this major discovery, and wish them success in their future excavations in Areni-1.
