Six leather shoes as old as some 2,000 years have been discovered at a ancient site in Dunhuang, northwest China's Gansu Province.
The yellow-colored shoes were made from cattle hide, with a round toe and flat sole. One of the shoes was laced. The leather was not polished, and the threads can still be seen on the shoes.
The leather shoes, from the Han Dynasty (205 BC-220 AD), are the oldest leather shoes found in China, indicating that the history of China's leather shoe making is some 1,000 years longer than previously believed.
The newly found, well-preserved shoes made for children aged three to six years old - unravel the leather shoe-making skills of olden days, which were quite close to those of today, according to He Shuangquan, who is in charge of the excavation of the ancient site at Xuanquanzhi in the desert of Dunhuang.
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