Subscribe now for full access and no adverts
A sandal-bearer’s role put him in intimate contact with the king’s person, making him a trusted and potentially influential member of the royal court.
A collection of some of the most important ‘documents’ from the very beginning of the Dynastic Period, discovered at Hierakonpolis, included several which related to Narmer, identified by many as the legendary Menes, Unifier of the Two Lands. On a monumental macehead (now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford) and on both sides of his famous palette, Narmer is depicted wearing full royal regalia and is accompanied by standard bearers and retainers. Prominent among them is a servant carrying a water jar – and the king’s sandals.
Sandals and symbolism
Although the wearing of sandals indicated status, even kings were often depicted barefoot. Since most representations come from a religious or funerary context, the apparent lack of sandals may misrepresent the reality of everyday life. The removal of footwear as a display of respect or piety, and the purification ritual of washing feet, are customs known from various cultures. A sandal-bearer’s role put him in intimate contact with the king’s person, making him a trusted and potentially influential member of the royal court. The appearance of Narmer’s sandal-bearer, designated ‘Servant of the Ruler’ in rudimentary hieroglyphs, is evidence for a royal footwear tradition of great antiquity.
It has been suggested that sandals represented the pharaoh’s physical connection with the land itself. Principal among the king’s religious responsibilities was the maintenance of maat (order), and by the simple act of walking the earth he subdued the powers of isfet (chaos). Conquests were described in similar metaphorical terms as the king treading his enemies into the ground and trampling foreign lands into submission. On the Gebel Barkal Stela, Thutmose III declared that ‘My Majesty has subjugated every land… All upon which the sun shines is bound together under my sandals’.
Types of sandal
The commonest style of sandal depicted on statues and in tomb and temple images is the familiar toe-thong form, with a Y- or T-shaped strap attached at three points to a flat sole. The habitual wearing of this ‘flip-flop’ style creates an exaggerated gap between the first and second toes. This deformity is apparent in many mummies, as well as being clearly shown in elite statues – evidence that sandals were worn more frequently than might appear from depictions.
The detailed carving of the Narmer Palette reveals that the addition of a heel strap provided enhanced support. The strap was secured to the sole on both sides, just below the ankles. The toe thong and heel strap were attached to a wider band across the instep. Artificial toes from Late Period mummies, once thought to be replacements in death for the loss of a big toe due to accident or disease, show patterns of wear from being used in life. Such prosthetics would have allowed the disabled owner to wear toe-thong sandals to improve their mobility and balance.
Priests serving in the temples observed a strict regime of purification which forbade the wearing of animal products, such as wool or leather. When footwear was appropriate, priests wore ‘white’ sandals made of plant materials, predominantly papyrus, date and dom palm leaves, reeds, and grasses. From Predynastic times, Egyptian basket-makers had produced containers of all shapes and sizes, by a technique analogous to the coiling method of making pottery. Grasses and other plant fibres were wrapped with thin strips of palm leaves to form cylindrical bundles that were coiled and stitched together. The same technique was applied to the manufacture of sandals, with fine bundles arranged in rows, rather than coils, to form the sole. The figure-of-eight shape of the sole was maintained with a border of two or more bundles, and straps were secured by knotting on the underside. Another technique, adapted from the production of simple domestic furniture, was the weaving together of strips of papyrus rind.
Most sandals were round-toed, but from the later Eighteenth Dynasty, pointed toes became fashionable among the elite, and, as these sandals increased in length, the toes turned up. Tutankhamun’s tomb contained more than 40 pairs of sandals, the majority of which were of plant fibre, some decorated with embroidery, beadwork, or the application of gold leaf. As pointed toes became further elongated, they were held in a recurved position by thongs attached to the instep bands, a style offering some protection for the toes.
For builders, quarrymen, and other workers whose jobs involved walking over rough terrain, sandals would have been welcome, as indicated by this scribe’s derogatory opinion of the military life: ‘As for the soldier… there are no sandals… He marches uphill through mountains… he is worn out from marching’. The many examples of footwear from Deir el-Medina show that the state-supported villagers were more accustomed to wearing sandals than members of less affluent communities.
Sturdier sandals made from leather are mentioned in texts and images from the Old Kingdom onwards. Descriptions of sandal-making suggest that skins were ‘cured’ by means of massaging with fats and oils, which possibly explains the scarcity and poor preservation of Egyptian leather artefacts. Leather sandals, at least those included in tombs, were commonly brightly coloured, predominantly in red, green, and white, sometimes imitating the plant-fibre originals. Stamped, painted, or applied embellishment made leather sandals a luxury item indicative of the owner’s wealth and status.
Motifs and amulets
Despite texts belittling their trade, the skills of sandal-makers were in demand, for both the living and the dead. While men appear more frequently than women in depictions of sandal-wearers, sandals featured in the burials of both sexes, as displayed on Middle Kingdom painted coffins.
A popular decorative theme – for instance, on several of Tutankhamun’s sandals – was bound captives, typically an Asiatic and a Nubian. Initially symbolising the king’s conquest of Egypt’s enemies, this motif on funerary sandals allowed the deceased to subdue the forces of evil and walk freely in the afterlife. The magical symbolism is emphasised by the inclusion of model sandals, often made of wood, placed at the foot of the coffin or within the mummy wrappings. Imitation sandals of gold foil were provided for elite and royal bodies. The distinctive combination of sandal straps, like many familiar items in Egypt, was adopted as an amuletic hieroglyph – that most recognisable of Egyptian symbols the ankh, meaning ‘life’.
All images: Hilary Wilson (HW), unless otherwise stated
