Furniture

Traditional Cretan Furniture

Other Furniture

Beds

According to all accounts, the marital bed consisted of a row of planks set on two wide trestles, on which the mattress and bedclothes were placed. In the early years of the 20th century, following the liberation of Crete and consequent economic prosperity, there were mass imports of metal beds, and both trestles and planks had disappeared completely by the middle of the century. We no longer know what Cretan beds looked like before the Turkish occupation, but presumably they were similar to those preserved until recently on certain Aegean islands.

Crandles

Apart from a few imported exceptions, there were no children’s beds in Crete. Mothers improvised various, often original solutions. Cradles, for example, were made of a bundle of reeds tied to two supporting bundles. This kalamoti (reed bed) was made like a bed and hung from the roof beams. Babies used to be swaddled until a certain age, and so were unable to move and fall off this platform-type cradle. When the mother had to work outdoors at harvest time, she placed the baby in an upturned wooden saddle. When they were slightly older, children were provided with a bed on the lid of the chest or trunk, or slept on the sofa. When there were many children in the family, they slept two or three to a trestle bed, lying at the head and foot.

Mirrors

It seems that with the liberation of Crete there was a tendency towards introversion and sociability, which led to the flooding of the countryside with distinctive, imported contemporary mirrors in the first half of the 20th century. We present a few examples of the infinite variety of this vanity item.