Here’s an argument to use the next time you need to defend buying a pair of high quality (read: expensive) leather shoes: they might cost a lot, but they’ll last 5,000 years.
Archaeologists excavating a cave in Armenia recently discovered what they say is “the world’s oldest known leather shoe.” According to the New York Times, the leather in the shoe has been dated to 3653 to 3627 B.C., which makes it about 5,500 years old! One of the lead scientists, Gregory Areshian, said the shoe was “probably quite expensive” and “very high quality.”
Read all about the shoe, and see a picture of it, on the New York Times web site. A research article on the discovery is also available in the online journal PLoS One, titled “First Direct Evidence of Chalcolithic Footwear from the Near Eastern Highlands.”
For more information on exciting archaeological discoveries, search the Library’s online catalog, or ask a reference librarian for assistance.
Thanks, Carol, for passing along this story!