Until the close of the modern era, Western Europeans
on most evenings experienced two major intervals
of sleep ... The initial interval of slumber was usually
referred to as "first sleep ..." The succeeding interval was
called "second" or "morning" sleep ... Both phases lasted
roughly the same length of time, with individuals waking
some time after midnight before returning to rest.
- A. Roger Ekirch,
At Day's Close: A History of Nighttime

It was impossible to dig more than a foot or two deep
about the town fields and gardens without coming upon
some tall soldier or other of the Empire, who had lain
there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a space of fifteen
hundred years. He was mostly found lying on his side, in
an oval scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in its shell; his
knees drawn up to his chest; sometimes with the remains
of his spear against his arm, a fibula or brooch of bronze
on his breast or forehead, an urn at his knees, a jar at his
throat, a bottle at his mouth ... They had lived so long
ago, their time was so unlike the present, their hopes and
motives were so widely removed from ours, that between
them and the living there seemed to stretch a gulf too
wide for even a spirit to pass.
-Thomas Hardy,
The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)