If you subscribe to Darwin's Theory of Evolution, you'll appreciate that at some point in our existence we probably didn't need to lie down to sleep - we were probably floating around some micro eco-system like little fish. As soon as we developed into something approximating our current form, however, we started looking for ways to make ourselves comfortable for a nice nap. To begin with, we used heaps of straw or leaves. Sometime around 3,200BC and 2,200BC we took an evolutionary step in moving those piles of soft things above ground-level onto stone blocks. Those stone blocks didn't come cheap, though, and were a reserve solely for the rich.
Egyptians liked their beds, too, with wooden pillows and curtains that were hung around the bed for privacy. The upper crust had their beds made out of wood, rather than stone, and sometimes had that wood gilded just for good measure. Other ancient societies such as the Persians had beds and took to decorating them with lots of fancy materials like mother-of-pearl to demonstrate their wealth.
One of the earliest written accounts of a bed have been found in Odysseus, which describes a bed as made from a tree and decorated with silver, gold as well as ivory. However, mattresses as we see them today probably came into existence in the Roman period. Romans used wool, feathers and hay to make sacking material and made pillows too to go with it. Around the Middle Ages, the mattresses evolved. They began to be made from skin rather than sacking, although filled with similar materials of wool, feathers and hair.
As far as the sofa-bed goes, it probably came into existence somewhere around the 13th century, when folding beds were used as settees. Back then, luxury was everywhere, and sofa-beds too had wooden bedsteads with inlays of gold, tortoise shell etc.
Around the 16th Century, beds became larger (6 to 8 feet across) although beds kingsize were still a few centuries away. By the 17th Century, many beds had started to lose their enclosed natures (with fewer having curtains and raised ends) and became more like the modern beds we have today, with pillows or cushions just at the head-end.
With time, people started looking for alternatives to wood, since it was prone to mites and other infestation. That is when iron beds came into existence, sometime in the 18th century.
If you consider four-poster beds to be the height of romance, then perhaps you should skip this paragraph. The four-poster with canopy was originally designed when houses had thatched roofs and were infested with insects and rats. The canopy was most adept at preventing your night being disturbed by having a cockroach drop on your face.
Egyptians liked their beds, too, with wooden pillows and curtains that were hung around the bed for privacy. The upper crust had their beds made out of wood, rather than stone, and sometimes had that wood gilded just for good measure. Other ancient societies such as the Persians had beds and took to decorating them with lots of fancy materials like mother-of-pearl to demonstrate their wealth.
One of the earliest written accounts of a bed have been found in Odysseus, which describes a bed as made from a tree and decorated with silver, gold as well as ivory. However, mattresses as we see them today probably came into existence in the Roman period. Romans used wool, feathers and hay to make sacking material and made pillows too to go with it. Around the Middle Ages, the mattresses evolved. They began to be made from skin rather than sacking, although filled with similar materials of wool, feathers and hair.
As far as the sofa-bed goes, it probably came into existence somewhere around the 13th century, when folding beds were used as settees. Back then, luxury was everywhere, and sofa-beds too had wooden bedsteads with inlays of gold, tortoise shell etc.
Around the 16th Century, beds became larger (6 to 8 feet across) although beds kingsize were still a few centuries away. By the 17th Century, many beds had started to lose their enclosed natures (with fewer having curtains and raised ends) and became more like the modern beds we have today, with pillows or cushions just at the head-end.
With time, people started looking for alternatives to wood, since it was prone to mites and other infestation. That is when iron beds came into existence, sometime in the 18th century.
If you consider four-poster beds to be the height of romance, then perhaps you should skip this paragraph. The four-poster with canopy was originally designed when houses had thatched roofs and were infested with insects and rats. The canopy was most adept at preventing your night being disturbed by having a cockroach drop on your face.
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