Caption: Rembrandt's "Woman on the Bed"
One-third of human life is spent in bed, and it can be said that one-third of human history is also closely related to beds. Famous archaeologists Fagan and Durrani discovered that beds have played an extremely important role in human history. In their co-authored "The Human History of the Bed", the two authors not only discuss the history of the bed itself, but also disseminate the topic of sleep, health, furniture industry, modern and ancient art, future technology, etc., which are extremely rich in content.
Introduction to The Human History of the Bed
Text | Nadia · Durrani
Source | The Human History of the Bed
Comedian Groucho Max once joked: "Anything that can't be done in bed is simply not worth doing." "Maybe he's right, because almost everything humans do happen in bed. For the ancient Egyptians, the bed was an important link between this life and the hereafter; in Shakespeare's time, the bed was a place of joyful social interaction; during World War II, Winston Churchill ruled in bed.
Today, however, this "bed" has been pushed into a dark corner. Sleep therapists tell us that beds should and should only be used for sleeping or making love. Perhaps, it is precisely because of this "private" nature of today's beds that most modern historians and archaeologists tend to ignore its true role. Surprisingly few people have written or written books specifically to explore the history of the bed and explore the different roles they play in our human lives. In any case, we still spend a third of our lives in bed, and it has all sorts of evocative stories worth telling. What our ancestors did in bed covered everything from conception to death. Considering the endless possibilities of writing such a book, we decided to expand a series of themes with "bed" as a clue, excerpting the moving stories that took place in bed and telling them into a new, horizontal history.
Sex, life, death, food, healing, conspiracy, fear, dreams – the bedroom is a theatre that provides the artist with a wealth of inspiration. In medieval Europe, an artistic theme recurred: three wise men lying naked in the same bed, receiving divine blessings.
In the 18th century, many genteel male artists preferred to turn their focus to naked women who were tired of lying on messy sheets, perhaps helplessly confronted by furious enemies or beasts, like the maidens in Henry Fuselli's Nightmare (1781). In 1787, the French artist Jacques-Louis David depicted Socrates' dying scene, showing the 70-year-old philosopher full of muscle and vitality—the embodiment of a determined rebellion against unjust authority on the eve of the French Revolution. Later, there are images of empty beds, such as the wooden bed covered with scarlet quilts in Van Gogh's Artist's Bedroom in Al (1888), as we know it, and Robert Rauschenberg's Bed (1955), on which he applied nail polish, toothpaste and paint. More recent works are installation artist Chiharu Shiota's complex and almost otherworldly bed-themed "In a Deep Sleep" (2002). In the work, women in white pajamas fall asleep in hospital beds, where symbols of female disease, manifestations of weakness, and myths are blended together.
■ Van Gogh's Artist's Bedroom in Al
■ Robert Rauschenberg's "Bed"
■ Chiharu Shiota,"In a Deep Sleep"
Perhaps the most famous of the bed-related works is perhaps British artist Tracy Emin's My Bed (1998). With a momentary inspiration, Emin brings out her own bed after breaking up with her boyfriend. The messy bed was haphazardly tossed with menstrual-stained underwear, empty wine bottles, cigarette butts, and used condoms. "My Bed" has attracted all kinds of criticism, not only because people question whether it can be regarded as a real "work of art", but also because in this day and age, "bed" is regarded as an extremely private place, which should not be discussed in civilized society, let alone exposed. But this view has also emerged recently. Historian Carol Shamas has jokingly described the early modern period as the "age of the bed," when the bed was generally displayed in the main room so that everyone could see it, as it could be the family's valuable and ostentatious possession. However, our obsession with the bed can also be traced back much further back in time.
■ Tracy Emin, "My Bed"
We don't know what the bed our ancestors used earlier was like. They live in the heart of Africa, where hungry predators roam around, and at first sleep in the trees. Over time, they learned to hide under rocks large enough to shelter themselves from the wind and rain or in caves that could be used as open camps, and to curl up in front of the bright fire and snuggle up to each other. But how did our ancestors protect themselves from wild beasts at night? They learned to use fire. The fire not only provides warmth and cooked food, but also protects their resting places, allowing them to gather at night and sleep soundly.
In the primitive world of large beasts of prey at night, fire gave them light and comfort. We can imagine a hunting party sitting around a burning fire, the flames dancing in the darkness. Sometimes, the eyes of wild beasts flicker in the shadows, and they wait for opportunities to pursue their prey or pick up leftovers that humans have discarded far from the fire. When night falls, human life is limited to fires and under rocks as shelters.
Ancient "beds" are known to have been excavated from a cave in South Africa. 77,000 years ago, a group of morden humans dug out these beds on the ground of caves. As it happens, in the ancient Germanic roots, "bed" means "a resting place excavated from the land." This definition could not be more apt, not only because it graphically describes the early bed being dug up, but also because it points out the nature of the bed—a place that has always been used for rest, although its practical uses are much broader.
■ Prehistoric houses in Rabre, England, with stone facilities on the left and right sides of which are suspected of being "beds" that are fenced off
In warm and comfortable modern houses, we have long forgotten how fragile human ancestors were in their natural environment, but for the way and places people sleep, it is always crucial to feel warm and protected. In sub-0 degrees Celsius climates, such as the late Ice Age or the Arctic Circle in Canada 200 years ago, people wrap themselves in thick fur and curl up in bed on days when temperatures plummet and daylight shortens. In the winter of more than 4,000 years ago, people sleeping in igloos on the Canadian island of Baffin had to survive months of long polar nights in a half-asleep state. They huddled together, curled up under thick, warm musk skins, with food and fuel within their reach.
To this day, millions of people around the world still sleep wrapped in blankets and furs, or simply sleep on the ground, concrete floors or wooden floors. But with the rise of human civilization five thousand years ago, the height of the bed, especially the bed of the elite class, gradually increased. In ancient Egypt, the dry climate allowed the bed of the time to survive. In the Tutankhamun era, around the middle of the 14th century BC, the basic design of the bed (as we know it) was perfected, although the end where the pillow was placed was slightly higher and there was also a guard to prevent sleepers from slipping out of the bed. The style of this sleeping platform seems to be relatively simple, but as we dig deeper, we will find more styles: box beds, hammocks, low waterbeds and beds 16 feet above the ground. Nevertheless, over the past five thousand years, the basic design of the rectangular bed has changed almost completely, even the mattress. Fresh grass, hay and wheat straw have been stuffed into sacks or cloth bags for centuries as the basic material for mattresses. Wealthier people sleep on multi-layer mattresses to avoid bed bug bites and reduce the itching caused by scratching of the filler. The great development of sleep aid technology is a product of the 21st century, and in the final analysis, it is nothing more than a hoax and poor medical technique derived from the fight against insomnia.
■ The funeral bed in the antechamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun's mausoleum, 1922
There is a great deal of research around sleep and its history, especially a method known as "segmented sleep" that seems to have been widely used long before electric lights turned night into daytime. Let's say people sleep for about 4 hours, then wake up, take a moment to make love, analyze the dreams they've just had, pray, do housework, meet friends, or do something improper, and then lie back in bed and sleep for 4 hours. In 17th-century London, the cries of vendors echoed in the streets at 3 a.m., indicating that there must have been willing guests at that time. Come to think of it, perhaps it is precisely because we modern people want to deny this "natural" rhythm of sleep that we now rely on billions of dollars worth of sleeping pills to sleep peacefully. So, can we simply solve the insomnia problem in front of us by understanding our past lives?
There are many things to do in bed besides sleeping. Even in different cultural practices, the bed is always a platform for sexual activity, but with whom to sleep, when to sleep, how to sleep, depending on the differences in the social environment. Although British princes may cringe, the affairs of members of the royal family are often carefully planned. The sexual activities of Egyptian pharaohs and Chinese emperors were recorded exclusively by officials. Sexual activity outside the palace is more liberal, but the church, which wears colored glasses for any deviance, naturally condemns it.
We also tend to overlook how important it was to talk in times when there were few written records, when everything was passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. Dark winter nights are a time for elders and shamans to tell stories, chant hymns, and pray for supernatural mysteries. The stories they tell may be familiar and repeated over and over again, but they also explain the birth of the universe, the origin of man, and the connection between man and the mysterious unknown and the powerful forces of nature. The time we spend in bed is a glue that holds human beings together and makes us know how to love and learn. The place where a man sleeps and spends his time is the center of his life.
■ Stone sculpture of the "Sleeping Woman" found at the Hal Safreni Underground Palace in Malta
For the vast majority of human history, what we call privacy did not exist. Many people share a bed with others because it provides each other with safety. Children, parents, and even entire families or blood groups will sleep on each other's backs. The social norms governing the bed are so flexible and evolving that it is possible that the partner who sleeps in the same bed tonight will be replaced by another person tomorrow night. In the 19th century, in Europe and the United States, it was not uncommon to sleep with strangers, whether on land or at sea, and to this day this is still very common in some countries. Individual beds are available for travelers or are charged per person. This way of arranging beds is not easy for people to sleep peacefully. The 16th-century English poet Andrew Buckley complained: "Some people turn over and over, some people chatter, and some people get drunk and climb into bed with a full of alcohol." "The bedroom, as a separate room, was once a status symbol for the royal family and the nobility, but even then, the bedroom often played the role of a public stage. King Louis XIV of France ruled the country in bed. In the past two hundred years, we ordinary people have used walls to separate the bedroom and make it a completely private space. However, this privacy will also be broken by a futuristic "connected bed" that seamlessly connects people to the Internet. Until the era of the Industrial Revolution, and even later, the bed was a place of practical and symbolic significance, and it can be said that it was the pillar of the stage of our lives.
What a stage this is! People's lives often begin with bed and end with bed. The birth and death of members of the royal family is always accompanied by a high risk, especially when inheritance rights are questionable, so the life expectancy of these people is often not long, and even dies violently without warning. The emperors of ancient China and India fell asleep in a state of high security, as did Queen Elizabeth I of England and the Egyptian pharaohs. The life and death of these prominent figures must be witnessed by witnesses. When members of the British royal family give birth, the Home Secretary must be present, and the rule was not repealed until the birth of Prince Charles in 1948. In 1688, as many as 42 celebrities from all walks of life gathered at St. James's Palace to witness the birth of James II's son. A historian at Cambridge called the event the first "media circus" performance in history to revolve around the birth of a royal.
The bed of the end of life also often has great symbolic significance, such as the long bed used in funerals. Excavations in Berel, Kazakhstan, are a 200 BC Mongolian tomb in which the bodies of two Cesidian nobles are housed on a high, delicate wooden bed. Outside the burial chamber, 11 funerary warhorses lie on "beds" made of birch bark, their saddles and harnesses intact. The imagery of this tomb is closely related to the beliefs of the ancient nomads: they worshiped the gods on warhorses above the heavenly dome, and they symbolized a world that depended on strong and good horses to survive and lead. In the afterlife, if these nobles did not have their war horses, it would mean that they had lost all their power. Until the Victorian era, the farewell of relatives and friends around the bed of death was a solemn ceremony, although people now disapprove of social activities in the bedroom.
Separations between men and women are often intense and frenetic, especially for the middle class in modern cities. For them, the idea that their bedroom has become a private refuge has swept through Western society.
■ Lennon with Yoko Ono in bed
For the first time in centuries, the basic techniques used to make beds have also changed, and beds have begun to become more refined and complex. In 1826, people began to use metal coil springs instead of traditional belts or ropes. Machine-spun cotton bedding brought about by the Industrial Revolution filled much of the space in victorian well-made wardrobes. In an era when the environment was generally humid and filled with fear of the tuberculosis that came with it, people needed to be careful to keep the bedding dry. One Victorian housewife once complained that the servants never made the bed: their first thought was always to put the whole bedspread on, making it "stuffy and breathless and uncomfortable". Modern experiments have shown that it took at least half an hour for a servant at the time to make up a bed. It wasn't until the 1970s that the greatest revolution to date took place in bedding: down duvets came out, which eliminated the need for endless changes to blankets, upper and lower sheets, and other bedding.
■ Queen Alexandra Fyodorovna's bedroom at Gatchina Palace
Today, state-of-the-art beds are a mirror of our increasing technological skills and the post-industrial society that is accustomed to multitasking. It is equipped with a USB port and other devices so that the person in bed is always in touch with the outside world. At the same time, growing urban populations and high housing prices are causing millions of people to live in managed apartments, cramped studios and overcrowded high-rise buildings. The bed, either folded against the wall, reappears in the public space of the home.
Now, the book unveils the quilt that covers the bed– the most basic part of human technology. It reveals that as one of the most overlooked human creations, the bed's strange, sometimes comical, but always fascinating history. From the mischievous bedmates frolicking in the halls of medieval houses to the sleeping habits of heads of state, we investigate the complex changes that take place in that little land of exploration and what people have done there.