Gaby
Researchers from the United Kingdom and Denmark say residents of Mesopotamia practiced kissing as far back as the 2500s BCE. This pushes the timeline back by about a millennium — earlier work had suggested the first recorded lip kisses appeared in South Asia around 1500 BCE. That means Mesopotamia now holds the earliest known evidence of kissing. Mesopotamia is the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that covers parts of modern-day Iraq and Syria.
This finding was made possible by deciphering texts on cuneiform clay tablets.
In a paper in Science, the authors argue that kissing didn’t arise in a single region but was common across many cultures.
Dr. Troels Pank Arboll of the University of Copenhagen says thousands of cuneiform clay tablets have survived. Some of those documents show that kissing in ancient Mesopotamia was part of romantic intimacy as well as friendly and familial interactions.
Studies of bonobos and chimpanzees — our closest relatives — show they also kiss. That suggests kissing is a basic social behavior in primates and helps explain why it’s found across cultures.
Kissing as a Virus Spreader
The team also suggests kissing may have helped spread viruses in the past, the Independent reported.
Dr. Arboll said, ‘There is a significant body of Mesopotamian medical texts; some mention a disease with symptoms resembling herpes simplex virus type 1.’ He cautioned that ancient medical texts were shaped by cultural and religious ideas, ‘so they should not be taken at face value.’
Arboll said the disease called bu’shanu in ancient texts shares similarities with symptoms of herpes simplex infections.
The texts describe a disease localized in and around the mouth and throat. Symptoms include vesicles around the mouth — one of the main signs of herpes infection, Arboll explained.
Dr. Sophie Lund Rasmussen of the University of Oxford said if kissing was common in ancient societies, it likely helped spread pathogens.
