My Feet Are Killing Me @ LottaShoes.com
'My Feet Are Killing Me' An Age-Old Plaint
Primative man discovered early on that his feet needed covering. Almost every region he stepped into laid a problem at his feet. In one it was cold and snow, in another the rocky ground that bruised and cut the soles of his feet, in still others the burning heat of desert sands. So he took the nearest at hand such as animal skin, bark and leaves which could be fashioned into crude foot coverings. Tools made from bone indicate that early man was fashioning leather into some kind of footwear. Prehistoric tribes such as the Berbers of North Africa were plaiting strips of leather into shoes without the aid of tools.In the region of the Nile, man was weaving water-softened pliant strands of papyrus reed (a grasslike plant) into sandals for himself and his famile long before he had discovered any method of recording his thoughts or deeds.
But almost as soon as man and woman put them on, they saw in shoesmore than mere protection against the elements. Styles which some of the ancients wore may appear utterly ridiculous to us today. Yet almost from their beginnings shoes struck man's fancy as an article of adornment. They became walking advertisements of ones wealth, prestige and social position. Often man lavished more attention upon his shoes than on any other element of attire.
In Egypt, locale of the most ancient people and blessed with a warm and dry climate it wasn't till after 3000 B.C. that most folk began to worry about protecting the soles of their feet.Priests and nobles were the only ones who had woren footware before that time. Wall paintings from 3500 B.C. show that even the king liked to walk barefoot. His servent folloiwed along carrying the royal sandals which the monarch put on only when he wanted to impress somebody with his official dignity. But by A cebtury and half later so many Egyptians were wearing sandals that the making of shoes was no longer a family affair.