Why Were Ancient Chinese Pillows So Hard?

What? This stone sculpture is in fact a pillow！

Why would anyone use a pillow made of stone? Wouldn’t it be too hard to hit your head? Did this stone pillow really exist in history?

Yes.
The pillows, first used by ancient Chinese 1500 years ago, were not actually used for sleeping, but as burial objects, evolving later in history to develop two new functions:

as sleeping pillows when it is in the bedroom,

and also as a tool to assist doctors in determining a patient’s pulse.

The ancient Chinese believed that the pulse beat is closely related to the health of the heart, while the smoothness of the pulse channel is related to the health of various organs, so the health of the body can be judged by feeling the changes in the pulse beat.

When the doctor made this pulse check, the patient needed to lean his or her arm firmly on a pillow to facilitate the doctor’s examination. Therefore, this kind of porcelain pillow was mainly used in the medical field in China 1,000 years ago.

But why do people try to sleep with such hard pillows?

In ancient times, there was no air conditioning in summer, making it difficult for people to sleep in the very hot conditions, so this pillow made of stone or porcelain would give people a cold feeling in the night.

Some people will lay another layer of straw on top of this pillow to make it more comfortable.

Some people, however, tie bells to such pillows, something like the alarm clocks of nowadays, cutting their sleep time so as to free up more time for study.

When there is market demand, new products will emerge. As people’s demand for sleeping porcelain pillows has grown, new developments have emerged for this type of porcelain pillow.
Some people like different styled pillows, so a pillow like a sculpture has appeared.

Some people require mottos written on memo pads to motivate them, leading to the appearance of text porcelain pillows.

Others believe that the lion is psychic and auspicious, so they will buy a lion-shaped porcelain pillow.

Although almost no one uses porcelain pillows anymore, but you can still find them in various museums.