BED (AS. bed, bedd, Icel. besr, Goth. bath, 011G. betel, Ger. belt, all from the root bhodh, preserved in Lat. fodire, to dig. Originally, an excavated spot, a dug-out place, a lair). This term originally indicated, in all Germanic lan guages, the litter (cf. French lit =bed), on which a person slept. Then it was used to in clude the frame or shelf on which the bedding was placed, the bedstead. In the ancient Orient there was little difference between the bed and the couch on which persons reclined during the day. In Egypt the frames were sometimes high, and were reached by a stool or short steps; they were supported on curved legs, ending in claw feet, and were of graceful lines, with a slightly raised headboard, a mattress and a wooden pil low, or head-rest. Sometimes the mattress or bedclothes were supported by a wieker-work of palm-branches. The beds of the Babylonians and Assyrians were more luxurious. Beds of ivory, gold, and fine woods were enumerated in the Ama ma tablets among the objects sent from Syria to the kings of Egypt. A British Museum relief shows King Assurbanipal reclining at dinner on a magnificent couch, while his queen sits in an armchair. Sometimes the placed in a recess on a raised slab, as in the Palace of Sargon, at Khorsabad, without any bedstead. The prevalence of insects in the East
soon led to the use of canopies, baldachins, and mosquito-nettings. There was one over the bed of Holophernes in his tent. These Asiatic beds were sometimes portable, sometimes stationary. The Persians are supposed to have been the first to make up a bed not only comfortable but beautiful to see, though it is probable that they inherited their taste from the Babylonians. Their great men carried beds even on campaigns, for Herodotus mentions some abandoned by Mar donius in his sudden flight. Such beds were in crusted with gold and silver and covered with magnificent stuffs. The Jews could hardly have equaled this magnificence; still several interest ing passages in the Old Testament illustrate their various uses. In receiving visitors the King bowed himself upon the bed (1. Kings i. 47) ; in Prov. (vii. 16) the bedding is described: "I have decked my bed with coverings of tapes try, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt." The Homeric poems mention the three main classes of early beds: the shake-down, the port able bed, the heavy bedstead, sometimes a fixture.