Post by account_disabled on Feb 21, 2024 22:41:07 GMT -6
This labyrinth of diffuse green mounds – large one-room houses surrounded by thick grass-covered walls and connected by covered stone walkways – was abandoned about , years ago. But within each residence are two objects that are still familiar to modern eyes: beds. The dwellings in Skara Brae, in the far north of Scotland, have mostly the same configuration: a room of approximately square meters with a central fireplace and an assortment of prehistoric furniture. Advertisements Next to the storage boxes and dressers with shelves, there are two rectangular enclosures, about the length of a human being. Like most artifacts found on this treeless island, these prehistoric beds are made of cold, hard stone slabs. And yet, with high headboards and raised sides, they have an instantly recognizable shape. Leaving aside the ancient inscriptions that some have, and some skeleton hidden underneath, perhaps they could almost belong to the st century. Humans have been making beds for hundreds of thousands of years . In the book “ What we did in bed: a horizontal story ,” anthropologist Brian Fagan of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and archaeologist Nadia Durrani trace its development from the beginning. For most of our species' existence, sleeping spaces are thought to have consisted of deep mounds of carefully layered foliage topped with soft, pest-resistant leaves.
Then the first bed frames began to appear. The Skara Brae sandstone beds are among the oldest ever found, along with a series of impressions left in the ground at the Durrington Walls settlement near Stonehenge, England: the spectral outlines of long-vanished wooden boxes , where the builders of that monument may have once slept. Bed frames Belarus Mobile Number List emerged just over , years ago, shortly after other pioneering technologies such as writing, and appeared in several places around the same time. About , kilometers from Orkney, in Malta, ritualized burial tunnels have revealed evidence of early incarnations of this furniture, including a clay figure of a woman sleeping peacefully on her side, with one hand under her head, on a simple raised platform. These first beds were not just places to rest. According to Fagan and Durrani, they often had deep symbolic meanings and links to the afterlife. In the millennia since then, the bed has evolved to take many different forms, reflecting the beliefs and practical concerns of the cultures in which people found themselves.
Below we present a brief history of these temples of sleep, at least in the Western world. Tutankhamun's bed Getty Images Tutankhamun was only briefly in power and is known primarily for the precious treasure found inside his tomb, including six beds. Ancient Egypt: headrests and sleeping platforms When Howard Carter broke the plaster door of Pharaoh Tut's tomb in , he was greeted with a glittering trove of gold objects, and six of them were beds. Among the disorderly assortment of objects, which had been returned at random after two ancient thefts, included a funerary bed decorated with the effigy of the cow goddess Mehet-weret, a gilded wooden bed, and a practical travel cot with a revolutionary folding design that may have been the first of its kind. Like most ancient Egyptian beds made for wealthy elites, Tutankhamun's consist primarily of a wooden frame with a base woven from reeds or rope. And as was customary at that time, the young king would have rested his sleepy head each night on a stiff, elevated headrest instead of a soft pillow. This system was often found in hot climates, where it may have improved air circulation. It might also have been attractive as a way to protect carefully crafted hairstyles: ancient Egyptians, including Tut's own grandmother, sometimes wore curly or braided styles.
Then the first bed frames began to appear. The Skara Brae sandstone beds are among the oldest ever found, along with a series of impressions left in the ground at the Durrington Walls settlement near Stonehenge, England: the spectral outlines of long-vanished wooden boxes , where the builders of that monument may have once slept. Bed frames Belarus Mobile Number List emerged just over , years ago, shortly after other pioneering technologies such as writing, and appeared in several places around the same time. About , kilometers from Orkney, in Malta, ritualized burial tunnels have revealed evidence of early incarnations of this furniture, including a clay figure of a woman sleeping peacefully on her side, with one hand under her head, on a simple raised platform. These first beds were not just places to rest. According to Fagan and Durrani, they often had deep symbolic meanings and links to the afterlife. In the millennia since then, the bed has evolved to take many different forms, reflecting the beliefs and practical concerns of the cultures in which people found themselves.
Below we present a brief history of these temples of sleep, at least in the Western world. Tutankhamun's bed Getty Images Tutankhamun was only briefly in power and is known primarily for the precious treasure found inside his tomb, including six beds. Ancient Egypt: headrests and sleeping platforms When Howard Carter broke the plaster door of Pharaoh Tut's tomb in , he was greeted with a glittering trove of gold objects, and six of them were beds. Among the disorderly assortment of objects, which had been returned at random after two ancient thefts, included a funerary bed decorated with the effigy of the cow goddess Mehet-weret, a gilded wooden bed, and a practical travel cot with a revolutionary folding design that may have been the first of its kind. Like most ancient Egyptian beds made for wealthy elites, Tutankhamun's consist primarily of a wooden frame with a base woven from reeds or rope. And as was customary at that time, the young king would have rested his sleepy head each night on a stiff, elevated headrest instead of a soft pillow. This system was often found in hot climates, where it may have improved air circulation. It might also have been attractive as a way to protect carefully crafted hairstyles: ancient Egyptians, including Tut's own grandmother, sometimes wore curly or braided styles.