And you thought your shoes were old?

We at Houser are gearing up for a “Shoe Of The Day” feature for this blog. In the meantime, I’ve been doing research on the history of footwear over the centuries… and look what I dug up:

Behold – the oldest pair of shoes … ever!

These were found on the 5000+ year-old body of “Otzi the Iceman”, who was found in 1991 as a well-preserved natural mummy in a glacier of the Otztal Alps. (Warning: Otzi wasn’t very *ahem* photogenic when found.)

And you thought your shoes were old.

Archaeologists reconstructed what Otzi’s shoes must of looked like, and they came up with this:

The shoes were waterproof and wide, designed for walking across the snow; they were constructed using bearskin for the soles, deer hide for top panels, and a netting made of tree bark. Soft grass went around the foot and in the shoe and functioned like warm socks.

It’s unlikely they were used to play sports, since there was no swoosh-mark.
However, the shoes have been found to constitute such excellent footwear, and are so comfy, there are plans for commercial production!

Since the above link is about two years old, I imagine they must have been produced by now. I’ll have to ask Gary if he’s got them in stock. Perhaps the modern version of the Iceman’s shoes have a company logo on them?

Now if we could just get Otzi to play basketball.