So you like to sound cool around friendly gatherings? Here’s an interesting yet simple rundown on the history of the bed! Imagine if you will, going back 10 000 years and more, what it must have been like sleeping on heaps of fur and plants for a bed. Or sleeping on top of each other like cavemen in kids movies. Of course, these sleeping conditions cannot be classed as beds these days and it’s hard to imagine living like that. This did, however, lay the foundation for the concept of the bed.
Through the years, advancement was rather limited, besides the use of more comfortable materials. The first major breakthrough came in approximately 3 600BC in Persia. The Persians were always ahead in the textile industry, i.e. Persian rugs, and even wine production as far back as 8 000BC. The Persians used goatskins with water and therefore produced the first water beds – thousands of years before their time in fact!
The Egyptians made possibly one of the most important advancements around 200 years later, where the Pharaohs would raise a pallet off the ground. Most Egyptians slept on palm boughs piled up in the corner of their homes, however, during the time of the Roman Empire, beds 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 wealthy made use of feathers.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, bed technology was sent into decline. The lowest point being the dark ages. Imagine going backwards in time, no more advanced than that of the Neolithic period. Not all was doomed, as soon enough improvements gradually became implemented again and by the renaissance time, in around say the 13th or 14th century, mattresses were made from mainly cotton stuffed with straw, hay or wool. The most luxurious at the time was silk filled with feathers. Now that sounds more heavenly!
Between that time and the 20th century, the most noteworthy event to take place regarding the development of the bed was around 1865, with the patent of the coil and spring mattress, as most beds are still based on this technological breakthrough.
Many different variations and improvements have been made during the 20th century, for example, the Murphy fold-away bed, or wall bed. It’s designed in a such a way to fold into the wall, providing much more area space in the bedroom. This is still available to this day, with certain improvements to make it easier to raise and lower. What made it cumbersome to move was the heavy thick wooden platform which the mattress was strapped down to. Later on, torsion springs were introduced for ease of folding away.
However, currently, the technology we are commonly used to, are the improvements to spring mattresses, foam and rubber beds, modern waterbeds and airbeds. Included is the memory foam which was originally developed by NASA in the 1970’s to ease the G-force on astronauts at takeoff. Other purposes for the memory foam were x-ray table pads and even used as football helmet liners.
The first memory foam mattress was produced in 1991, called the Tempur-Pedic Swedish mattress. This eventually lead to the mattress and cushion company, Tempur World.
Where is the future of beds headed? Well, a brief search on Google will give an indication of the concepts of capsules and hover beds of different shapes and sizes. Certainly, the space age idealist would find these very appealing, and perhaps, in time to come, we may all do.
Luckily, for the time being, things aren’t too weird and whacky, and you’re still able to walk into our stores and recognize beds for what they have looked like for many a decade. The difference for us is our knowledge of the best technology, and our satisfaction guaranteed customer service we pride our brand on.