Oldest Shoes Ever Found: Well-Preserved, but Not Well Enough for Fall Season

What do I know about shoes? I know my Balenciagas from my Louboutins at the very least, but I only dabble in those most famous of footwear because they look dangerous enough to take down a mugger or ninja. Like that scene from Sex and the City? You know, when Carrie… Anyway, shoes are not among my chiefest of interests. Cool archaeological finds, on the other hand, are more my cup of loose tea. However, it’s not like the two can’t combine right?

The Daily Mail is reporting that the world’s oldest shoes, dated to be 5,500 years old, were just recently discovered in Armenia, a mere stone’s throw from the Fertile Crescent. The Fertile Crescent, for those who skipped 7th grade social studies, was “the great sweep of land that gave birth to the first towns, cities and farms.”

As the Mail writes:

Created more than 5,500 years ago at the dawn of civilisation this perfectly preserved brown leather lace-up is the oldest shoe in the world.

It was created from a piece of cow hide 1,000 years before the Great Pyramid of Giza and stitched together with leather thread.

The size 4 shoe – discovered buried in a cave in Armenia – is so well preserved that its lace is still intact.

Archaeologists say it probably belonged to a woman who deliberately buried it in the cave during a mysterious ritual. The cave also contained three pots, each containing a child’s skull, along with containers of barley, wheat and apricot.

She certainly couldn’t go toe-to-toe Kobe with these. Researchers would go on to add that the shoes’ being filled with grass were in order to keep out the cold or give shape to the footwear, though they are as yet unsure of its exact purpose. I can imagine it may have been slightly uncomfortable, but high fashion isn’t about comfort is it? Check out the diagram below:

[via Geekologie, Daily Mail, pics via Ecouterre]