SHOES and SHOE SIZE TRIVIA
The world's oldest known shoe was found under a layer of sheep dung in an Armenian cave. Buried in a pot 5,500 years ago as part of some ritual, the leather shoe was tied with laces and filled with grass that probably helped keep its shape. The same shoe design would go on to be used across Europe for thousands of years.
Archaeology, Sept/Oct 2010 (www.archaeology.org)
In about 1305, Edward I of England decreed that one inch should be the measure of three barleycorns, and English shoe sizing began; thus a child's shoe that measured 13 barleycorns became a size 13.
Encyclopedia Britannica
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