Bed base

The oldest known human beds are 77,000 years old; they were found in the Sibudu Cave in South Africa.

They are made of layers of sedges, rushes and grasses, collected from the uThongathi River which runs directly below the sandstone cliff.

The beds are mostly made of river wild-quince (Cryptocarya woodii), which repels insects when crushed.

This pile of mattresses, softest topmost, and the sheets, blanket, and pillows, was what early Europeans called a "bed" (a sense which survives in words like featherbed).

Mud-brick platforms, covered in mats, were used as furniture by poor people in Ancient Egypt.

The Korean ondol, the Chinese kang, many European cocklestoves, and Russian stoves are all variants of this technology.

Studies of ancient hieroglyphs suggest that the platform beds were revered in Egyptian culture.

While common people slept on simpler constructions, the trend developed to decorate the woods surface with gilding and paints and also to use carving to enhance the beauty of this utilitarian object.

Ivory, exotic woods and metal were used as inlay or even as the entire foot on the best constructions, bringing artistic design to a commonplace object.

Traditionally, in Europe and the Americas, this was one or more insulating mattresses: cloth bags stuffed with a variety of materials (see above), and possibly also a canopy hung with warm curtains.

Air mattresses are recorded in the 1400s; Louis XI, king of France, had one made of leather.

[2]: 498 vol3 An all-wood foundation usually has seven or eight support slats, long laths of wood laid across the frame.

[11] In Europe, bedslats were at one point nailed to the frame, but that made disassembling a bed very difficult.

More modernly, the slats may be topped by a sheet of paperboard or beaverboard, often with holes in it to ventilate the mattress.