World’s oldest shoe...after 5,500 years in sheep dung
THE world’s oldest shoe has been discovered “perfectly preserved” under a pile of ancient sheep dung.
Tests confirmed it was made 5,500 years ago – 400 years before Stonehenge and 1,000 years earlier than the construction of Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza.
The small cowhide lace-up, found beside food containers in a cave in Armenia, was in such good condition because of the thick dung cover, archaeologists said yesterday.
The droppings formed a solid seal over the objects “preserving them beautifully over the millennia,” said researcher Dr Ron Pinhasi, of University College Cork, Ireland.
“The artefacts remained fresh-dried just like they were put in a can. We couldn’t believe it,” added his colleague Dr Gregory Areshian of the University of California, LA.
The shoe is a British size four. But it isn’t known if it was worn by a man or a woman.