Once there was and there was not…a fashionable shoe known as “the world’s oldest shoe found in an Armenian cave.”
And what was found in a cave in Armenia last week was not just the world’s oldest shoe, but scarves and pots and pans and two skulls with missing jaws. This story feels like Armenians have just put on a pair of new shoes, and everything feels alright (Nutini, 2007).
Our ancestors were apparently not only fashionable, wearing moccasins in a style that survived for nearly six millennia, but were also good at housekeeping and quite brutal. One of the skulls must have pulled a Helen Thomas and had his or her jaw yanked right off its face.
This bizarre headline of the day was bigger than the BP (beautiful people) oil spill for a split second. The story went viral, and it warrants all the clichés we can remember to use. So let’s capitalize on these rare gifts from the universe, because good PR comes too infrequently for our people. And criminal Armenians in the news hurt like brand new shoes (Sade, 1983).
What other shoe stories can our people’s history and present-day tell the world? What shoes are we filling that can help our people and the global population? Whose steps are we following and who is following in your footsteps? Where are all the goody-two-shoes (Ant, 1981)?
The shoe is on our foot now, so we have to see what we can do with this instant headline. Let’s think big. Sex and the City III can be shot in Armenia. Its subtitle could be “the Oldest Armenian Shoe Romance Cruise on Lake Sevan.” Or Super Old Shoe, the superhero. Or Immigrants For (IV)–the shoes they stole. Or how about Shoe Tourism (Asbarez, 2010)?
The fact is that the story of the world’s oldest shoe being found in Armenia doesn’t happen every day. Maybe it happens once in the history of Earth?
This got me thinking about how little we know about what people find interesting in the Armenian world. I also realized how little I must know about my ancestors that a dung-covered shoe makes me proud. And how fast do we embrace anything Armenian just because it’s in the headlines!
Maybe before our people discovered pointed shoes were cool, we had better fashion sense. Maybe God spoke to Noah about what proper footwear was when He told the old man to pack his family and animal friends into the arc.
Perhaps this was Noah’s right shoe? Could it be? But if this was Noah’s shoe, what happened to the left shoe and the jaws missing from the skulls?
And what do we know about the fashion sense of our ancestors who walked in and out of those ancient monasteries and architectural marvels? Did they all wear fashionable shoes? Were there multiple colors of leather? Were there different styles? Did people show off their shoes to each other as a sign of affluence and trend-setting? Were there fashion trends three thousand years before Christ? What great fashion secrets are buried on the grounds of our ancestral homeland that have yet to be unearthed and studied? Who will break the fashion trend news sooner? E! and TMZ or Hollyscoop?
Inquiring minds want to know (that cliché is courtesy of 80s TV commercials that also gave birth to “Where’s the Beef” and “When EF Huffington speaks, people listen.” Actually, it was EF Hutton, but it’s 2010).
Now back to Shusho (no, not the singer)…
So many questions about these shoes and not many answers. And gosh darn it, the day after the news was announced, there were more articles surfacing about how this shoe in Armenia was not the oldest shoe since there was a shoe in Missouri that was dated to be at least 10,000-years-old. There went my instant excitement for our homeland’s instant claim to fame.
Don’t you love walking in my shoes (Depeche Mode, 2006).
And what about this fascination that was sparked by this ancient shoe? Apparently everyone has wanted to read the story, and from the BBC to the Associated Press were journalists speaking the word Armenia within proximity of the words “oldest shoe in the world.” There were interviews on CNN and the story turned out to be the most popular one on Armenian websites.
Among the facts reported were that the shoe was at least 5,500 years old. The cave was in Vayots Dzor, southeast of Yerevan. And the shoe was covered by sheep and deer poop.
Why did the oldest shoe story make everyone so excited? Did it reaffirm for Armenians our excellent fashion sense? Why did non-Armenians find this oldest shoe story so interesting? Was it because we imagined that Noah and his party crew didn’t wear shoes? Was it because the skulls had no jaws? Or was it because the shoe was stuffed with grass so that it would retain its shape?
Act your age not your shoe size (Prince, 1986).
Can you imagine the flocks of scientists and anthropologists that can now be attracted to our homeland? Can you imagine the funding new digs will receive? Can you imagine the thousands of headlines that can be unearthed when modern-day scientists study ancient-day Armenians? If our shoes predate the Pharaohs, we can be the rock stars of the universe, and no longer walk like an Egyptian (Bangles, 1986).
I love my narcissistic self, don’t I? Yes, I do (Pinsky, 2009).
And if there was one shoe in one cave, what’s the likelihood of us finding the oldest, older than oldest, less old than the older shoe in the world? Perhaps there’s a tourism industry here: Shoe Travel.
Maybe there can even be a Travel Channel series on tracking the oldest shoe in the world. Samantha Brown would be a good hostess to tap in search of places to sleep and eat when going on an Oldest Shoes Tourism Trip. Samantha would even lure Anthony Bourdain and that Man vs. Food guy could be challenged to see how many skewers of khorovadz and how many khacapuris he can down in one sitting in the middle of Republic Square.
We’re really onto something now. And it all started with the drop of one oldest shoe story on the internet. What will happen when the second shoe drops? Between the first and second shoe, we have a lot of homework to do. If our ancient shoe is this popular, can you imagine what we can do with the really interesting shoe stories from the homeland?
Let’s put our best foot forward (Overbury, 1613).
And three shoes fell from heaven: one for the storyteller, one for him who made him tell it, and one for you the reader.
P.S. Knock Knock. Who’s there? Hye Shoe. Bless You.
Paul Chaderjian
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Why does everyone feel compelled to make light of this wonderful discovery? Everyone from those in the Armenian press to the idiots commenting on the Huffington Post. What’s so damned funny? A good friend used to complain that Armenians don’t know their own history and I think she was right. Worst of all is those Armenians who feel compelled to specify “in what is now Armenia.” Do these brainiacs feel fulfilled in pointing out that some Armenians arrived from parts North. What do they think happened to the indigenous folks? Did they just disappear? Escape to another planet perhaps. People, this is a great find. There’s nothing funny about it. We should be proud that the oldest wheels in the world are those pulled out of Lakes Van and Sevan (original People’s Almanac) and not the politically correct “Mesopotamia.” The turks have done such a good job of wiping out our history and our clout that the world would rather say the Iraqis invented the wheel than the Armenians. Wake up people, we were among the first, if not the first, to practice agriculture, metallurgy, and animal husbandry. Xenophon and his men brought beer, snow shoes, and skis they picked up in Armenia to Europe. They couldn’t have made it through our mountains without them. Our forebears were brilliant. Get used to it people. Know your own history. There’s nothing funny about it.