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THEN In 2013, the British Museum exhibited some 250 objects archaeologists had recovered from the site of ill-fated Pompeii, preserved in the hardened ash. Among them, a garden bench that suggested humans were using outdoor settees at least as far back as Vesuvius’s eruption, in 79 AD. In medieval Europe, walled domestic gardens were dotted with hedge-like benches formed directly from turf—often fortified with brick, stone or wood. With Europe’s Age of Enlightenment came the rise of unrestrained gardens designed for contemplative thinking; so, naturally, people needed more seats upon which to ruminate. The wooden…