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Essay on Umbrellas, Parasols
An umbrella is a device used to keep rain off a person. They can be made by stretching a fabric or other material over a wire frame. Umbrellas carried by hand are now usually used as rain shields, although their first use was for shielding from the sun; however, as tans became more sociably acceptable, this usage declined.The umbrella was invented over 4,000 years ago. We have seen evidence of umbrellas in the ancient art and artifacts of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and China. It was the Chinese, who used wax and lac parasols to keep away the rain. The word is derived from Latin .
It was during the 16th Century that umbrellas became popular in the West. In the beginning, umbrellas were deemed fit for use only by women. Later, even the men took to carrying them around. The term umbrella is derived from the parasol, which was first used as a protection against the scorching heat of the sun, "para" meaing stop and "sol" meaning sun. The parasol or umbrella dates from the earliest ages, some commentators on the Bible fancying they can discover it in places where a shade protecting from the sun is mentioned.
Some investigators have supposed that its invention was suggested by large leaves tied to the branching extremities of a bough; others assert that the idea was probably derived from the tent, which remains in form unaltered to the present day.
As a shade from the sun, the umbrella is of great antiquity. We see it in the sculptures and paintings of Egypt, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson has engraved a delineation of an Ethiopian princess, traveling in her chariot through Upper Egypt to Thebes, wherein the car is furnished with a kind of umbrella fixed to a tall staff rising from the center, and in its arrangement closely resembling the chaise umbrella of the present time......
