Today's beds are spacious and comfortable, but they weren't always that way. The history of the bed is fraught with bad ideas and itchy materials. Does this Spark an idea?
Earliest Beds
Put simply, a bed is a place to sleep. Before people started building furniture for the purpose of sleeping, our earliest ancestors simply slept on the ground.
Egyptian Beds
The ancient Egyptians piled palm leaves in their houses and slept on them, while the pharaohs slept on flat pallets made of hard materials such as gold.
Roman Beds
The Romans invented the mattress, making beds that were comfortable as well as decorative.
Renaissance Beds
During the Renaissance period (roughly 1400 to 1600), beds were located in every room of the house, doubling as couches during the day. The bedroom as we now know it did not exist in most houses until the 1600s.
Mattress History
Renaissance mattresses were filled with straw and bound with rope. Only in the late 1700s were softer cotton mattresses introduced. The 20th century saw the evolution of comfortable mattresses, including foam mattresses, waterbeds and the queen-size mattress.
Modern Beds
Modern beds and mattresses are increasingly large, with special features such as the ability to be raised into a chair position or become softer or firmer with the click of a button.
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