An Armenian post-graduate student, Diana Zardaryan, discovered the leather shoe during the course of excavations by a team of archeologists from Armenia's Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Ireland and the United States.[3] The shoe was found upside down at the base of a shallow, rounded, and plastered pit that was 45 cm (18 in) deep and 44–48 cm (17–19 in) wide, beneath an overturned broken Chalcolithic ceramic bowl.[4] A broken pot and goat horns also were found nearby. Excavations in the same area also found the world's oldest known wine-making site.[5]
The shoe was found in near-perfect condition due to the cool and dry conditions in the cave and a thick layer of sheep dung which acted as a solid seal. Large storage containers were found in the same cave, many of which held well-preserved wheat, barley, and apricots, as well as other edible plants.[7] The shoe contained grass and the archaeologists were uncertain as to whether this was because the grass was used as insulation to keep the foot warm, or used to preserve the shape of the shoe while not being worn. Lead archaeologist Ron Pinhasi could not determine whether the shoe belonged to a man or a woman. While small, approximately a woman's United States and Canada size 7, European size 37, or United Kingdom size 6, he stated that "the shoe could well have fitted a man from that era".[7] The shoe laces were preserved as well.[7]
Major similarities exist between the manufacturing technique and style of one-piece leather-hide shoes discovered across Europe and the one reported from Areni-1 Cave, suggesting that shoes of this type were worn for millennia across a large and environmentally diverse geographic region.[4] According to Pinhasi, the Areni-1 shoe is similar to the Irish pampootie, a shoe style worn in the Aran Islands up to the 1950s.[8] The shoes are very similar to the traditional shoes of the Balkans, still seen today in festivals, known as Opanci (Opanke).[9]
When the material was dated by the two radiocarbon laboratories in Oxford and California, it was established that the shoe dates back to 3,500 BC. This date is some two hundred years older than the date given for the leather shoe found on Ötzi the Iceman.
