The Evolution of Bedding

When you’re wrapped up in your toasty down comforter, it’s hard to imagine what our early ancestors used as bedding. Did they sleep on the cold cave floor under an animal pelt? Or did they just shiver the whole night?

With all the early ancestors had to do to survive, comfort wasn’t high on their list of priorities. They probably just crawled inside a cave and hoped it didn’t rain. A lot has changed! Let’s explore how sleeping rituals and bedding has changed.

In the Neolithic period (about 10,000 years ago), people slept on soft branches and animals pelts. Talk about tossing and turning. Imagine waking up on a pile of sticks and a flea-ridden animal pelt.

“Beds,”as we know them trace back to 3400 BC with the Egyptian pharaohs, the first people to sleep off the ground, on raised areas. Most people, with the exception of the rich slept on palm bows heaped in the corner of their homes. King Tutankhamun, made his bed of ebony and gold.

People grew tired of sleeping on palm leaves and beds evolved. The Romans slept on bags filled with feathers, wool, and more. Apparently, the idea of feather beds and down comforters dates all the way back to Roman Times. Who knew? The artistic and inventive Romans were also the first ones to decorate their bedding using flashy materials like gold, silver, and jewels.

In the 1600’s, after the Renaissance, people stuffed their mattresses with straw, feathers, or hay and placed them on ropes in a lattice. To “sleep tight” meant to pull the ropes until the bed was in a comfortable position.

In the mid 1700’s, merchants made covers with higher-quality materials, like linen and cotton. Bed frames were constructed of timber until later in the century, when people started using cast iron. It was largely believed that the combination of cast-iron and cotton turned pests like bedbugs and mice away.

During the 1800’s, there was a major change in bedding - the advent of the first coil spring in 1865. Futons were invented in the 1940’s, waterbeds in the 1960’s, and memory foam in the 1990’s. The rest is history! In the 21st century, people spend more on their bedding than ever and sleep in fine down comforters and plush pillows. Bedding has come a long way since the beginning of time.

Elwood Bradford is an expert on down pillows and a restless writer from Seattle, WA.