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There Is An Ancient Heritage That Surrounds The Table

By: Annie Deakin

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For those who look at their furniture and wonder where the individual pieces came from, they'd probably be interested to know that there is an ancient heritage that surrounds the table. This very useful and ubiquitous item of furniture first made its appearance thousands of years ago, though it tends not to resemble what it did back then. Those tables were very low to the ground, though every table has a flat surface.

Many scholars and fans of the civilization say that it was the Egyptians who brought the table as we generally know it into being. Back then, they were looking for ways in which they could lie down on their couches and eat at the same time. Naturally enough, tables back then took on the characteristics most demanded of them, meaning they were very low to the ground and sat on four short legs.

As always, it was the Romans and the Greeks -- they liked to examine what the Egyptians did right and then create their own versions -- who took the table and created something that was still basically what it had always been, only a bit different. In the case of this particular piece of furniture, they replaced four legs with two slabs, one at each end of the flat surface.

As it was created in the Eastern areas of the Old World, so it remained for quite a long amount of time. Over in the Western regions of the Old World, tables gradually began to insinuate themselves into popular usage, though they were quite different from those in the East. Mostly, these tables were composed of a couple of simple boards supported by two trestles or something we'd call a sawhorse today.

Those in the West back then tended to treat the idea of tables somewhat differently than did those people living in the East, almost all of whom looked at tables and saw places to sit around and eat or conduct meetings and the like. Westernized versions of tables were used more as sideboards or places to put large amounts of food on that would be served to people elsewhere. Chairs soon began to change that, though.

That's because -- people being people -- the use for chairs and tables as a unit soon began to be self-evident. In this manner, it soon became a given that people would sit around a table (initially lower to the ground than would later be the case) and take their meals, which meant that tables needed to evolve to resemble their Eastern cousins. Therefore, sometimes in the 1500s, tables soon gained legs.

At first, these tables were lower to the ground, but they, too, grew in height as chairs themselves began to grow taller. By the 17th century, the table as we know it today was fully and completely evolved into the same kinds that many of us have in our own homes or offices and businesses. And there are a wide variety of what we call tables, too. Pool and card tables are two such examples.

Nowadays, one would be correct in thinking that the two most well-known examples of a table are the coffee and the kitchen variety. One is low to the ground and occupies a central place in the living room while the other sits in the kitchen and fills all sorts of roles. These are sometimes known as dining tables, too, and either one is more purpose-built than the coffee variety.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Annie is an expert furniture and interior design writer. Her current area of specialism is furniture, furniture stores and bedroom sale

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