A History of Beds

The history of beds began 10,000 years ago in the Neolithic period with people sleeping on heaps of furs and plants. These sleeping areas could hardly be classed as a bed nowadays, but the small areas of comfort laid the basic foundations for the concept of the bed. As the years went by, advancement was most likely very limited (except for the use of more comfortable materials). The next major breakthrough came in roughly 3600 BC in Persia. This involved filling goatskins with water and therefore producing the first waterbeds - thousands of years before their time. Perhaps the most important idea came from the Egyptians 200 years later (2400 BC) where the pharaohs would raise a pallet off the ground. At this time, many of the more common Egyptians would sleep on palm boughs piled up in the corner of their homes. It was during the time of the Roman Empire that beds really became a source of luxury and comfort, for the rich at least. The mattresses were stuffed bags and might have included materials such as wool, hay or reeds for the average citizen. The very wealthy would have used feathers.

The downfall of Rome and the downfall of beds:

After the fall of the Roman Empire, bed technology went into decline. The lowest point was during the dark ages, where sleeping areas were no more advanced than that of the Neolithic period. Thankfully things gradually improved and by the renaissance, in around the 13th or 14th century, mattresses were made from mainly cotton stuffed with straw, hey or wool. The most luxurious may have been silk filled with feathers. The most interesting thing to happen next was in 1865, with the patent of the coil spring mattress. This mattress type is still very widely used today.

20th Century Beds:

The 20th century saw the most bed advancements so far, beginning with the introduction of the fold away Murphy bed in 1918. Other progression included: improvements to springs in mattresses, foam rubber beds, modern waterbeds and airbeds. Arguably, the most important bed invention of recent times was memory foam. This was originally developed by NASA in the 1970’s to ease the G-force on astronauts at takeoff, yet was never used for this purpose. Despite this, others saw the memory foams potential for use in beds and the material is now becoming more commonly used for sleeping on as time goes by.

The Future of Beds:

What the future holds for beds is very uncertain but one thing we can be sure of is that people will constantly try to find more comfortable and effective methods of sleeping in the future.