This is a story about a place that’s a big part of your life, but probably gets little thought. Odds are, you were born there. You spend as much as a third of every day there. And, you may ultimately die there. But, what do you know about the history of the bed? A longtime UC Santa Barbara professor has co-authored a new book about the subject, called “What We Did In Bed: A Horizontal History.”
Brian Fagan is one of the world’s leading archaeological authors. Fagan says beds have evolved in many ways since beginning as resting places dug in the earth to the raised platforms we know today.
The longtime UCSB researcher says it was once common for beds to be used by kings and queens to govern from their beds, with favored people joining them in bed in a plutonic way to talk about affairs of state.
The archaeologist says he believes that our beds don’t get the attention they should, considering how central they are in our lives. We spend about a third of our life in bed.
“What We Did In Bed: A Horizontal History” is now in selected bookstores, and is available online.
