People living around the Mediterranean had little need for elaborate footwear, with exceptions like the Hittites in their Anatolian highlands who wore shoes with turned up toes, though in Egyptian reliefs Hittites are depicted unshod

Egyptians went barefoot, but wore sandals on special occasions or when their feet were likely to get hurt. The sandals were tied with two thongs and, if they had a pointed tip this was often turned upwards. They were made of leather or rush woven or stitched together, and often had leather soles and straps. The cheapest kind of sandals were affordable to all but the very poorest. Ipuwer in his Admonitions used the lack of sandals to describe the destitute who, in the topsy-turvy world of chaos he warned from, attained great wealth: He who could not afford sandals owns riches.

The kings wore at times very elaborately decorated sandals, and sometimes decorative gloves as well, but generally they were depicted barefoot, as were the gods.

Sandals made of gold have been found which cannot have been very comfortable to their wearers if they were worn at all. Among Tutankhamen's equipment there were 93 pieces of footwear. There were sandals made of wood with depictions of enemies on their soles, on which the king would tread with every step and another pair which was fastened with buttons.

One of the changes in daily life which occurred during the Middle and New Kingdoms was the increasing use of sandals, above all where soldiers or travellers were concerned.

Sandals seem to have had an importance which mostly escapes us nowadays, symbolizing prosperity and authority. Thutmose III speaks of the countries he conquered, and possibly of the rest of the world as well, as all lands were under my sandals.

Among the oldest images of the dynastic period are depictions of the sandal-bearer of the pharaoh, and for the sixth dynasty official Weni this post was seemingly an important stage in a splendid career, mentioned twice in his autobiography.

The shoes seem to have been just originating at that period; two or three examples are known, but all of them have the leather sandal strap between the toes, and joining to the sides of the heel, to retain the sole on the foot; the upper leather being stitched on merely as a covering without its being intended to hold the shoe on the foot. These soles are compound, of three or four thicknesses. W.M.F.Petrie Kahun, Gurob and Hawara, p.28

Early Middle Kingdom shoes were little more than sandals with straps between the toes and joined to the sides at the heel with the upper leather just covering the foot without being fastened to the foot itself. During the New Kingdom there were times when some Egyptians seem to have taken to occasionally wearing shoes, as in a depiction of Queen Nutmose at Karnak. This may have come about as an influence of the Hittites, with whom they came into contact at this time.

The Egyptian sandals could have had a wood sole, a leather sole, a papyrus sole, a reed sole or a sole of woven palm leaves sometimes covered with burlap which were secured to the foot with the "infra finger" method in which a skin strip, fixed to the sole, passes between the big toe and the other toes encircling the instep; in subsequent ages to 1.300 BCE, the Egyptians began to wear models with a turned-up toe.

The most commonly used material for making them was the papyrus in the form of woven fibres, abundant and therefore not inexpensive; their model hasn't changed much in the course of the millenarian era of ancient Egypt. The priests were imposed to wear only sandals made with the fibres of this plant.

At the British Museum of London a pair of sandals is exhibited found at Beni Hasan in the tomb of Se- bekhetepi, probably an official of the local governor and lived in the period of the medium reign (abt. 2.125 - 1.795 BCE). At the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna a pair of woven reed insoles is exhibited which was placed at the level of the feet of the mummy like element of funerary outfit. They have a cedar wood sole model similar to that of the so-called "foot shape" with the strips of skin in the infra finger manner colored with white chalk.As they were part of the funeral wealth of the deceased, being directly placed on the cover of inner sarcophagus, at the level of the feet of the mummy, considering their lightness, not suitable for daily use and their lack of wear and tear, one thinks that, in this particular case, their were only needed by the owner for use in the reign of the dead men.

In the same museum there is a pair of sandals for a child found at Thebes, dating back to new reign (abt.1.550 - 1 069 BCE); they have the soles stitched with a string made from a woven fibres of papyrus. The arrangement of the little leather straps that secure the soles to the foot, look like the symbol of the "Ankh" symbolizing life; the ring at top of the symbol are the straps surrounding the ankle, the transversal part are the side-straps fixed to the sole, the upright part is the strap leading from the instep and joining to the interstice between the big toe and following toes.

The slippers seen on a male statue of the 8° dynasty (abt. 1.350 BCE) (are part of the collection of the British Museum of London; they have leather or wood pointed toes and the straps passing around the instep seem to be stuf- fed.

The sandals of the elders could be finely decorated with semi-precious stones and beads and have even a gold sole. In the tomb of Tutankhamon Pharaoh (died in 1.359 BCE) two life-size statues wearing gold sandals were found, while in a casket were papyrus and reed sandals.

On the soles of the sandals of the Pharaoh there were sometimes engraved or painted images of his enemies so that he could continuously trample them under foot. They also used a sort of slipper with turned-up toes manufactured from interlaced palm leaves. At the Musées Royaux d' Art et Histoire of Brussels a sole of sandal is exposed date back to the Ptolemaic age (332- 30 a.C.), made from interlaced palm leaf and rush sew on the edges with a vegetable string.

From the ancient city of Antinoopolis in Egypt (modern Shayk Abadah) dating back to 3°- 4° century CE there are the black leather slippers with purple decorations exhibited at British Museum of London.

The Egyptian shoes were lacking in heels except for those worn by slaughterers who had them in order to not dirty his feet with the blood of the dead beasts.

As a lot of models of sandals had a rigid sole, in wood or precious metals, we have information from the papyruses that deal with medicine that the Egyptians often suffered from sore feet.

RESOURCE MATERIAL

J.H.Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt

University of Indiana website

'Ancient Egypt' by Lionel Casson, Time-Life Books