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Uncovering the KISS story of the smooch: The earliest recorded kiss occurred 4,500 years ago in Mesopotamia (and sparked a massive herpes outbreak!)
- Humanity’s earliest kiss dates back to 4,500 years ago in the ancient Middle East
- This is 1,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to researchers
It’s commonplace now, with couples kissing in seemingly every public place.
But French kissing may have first started in the Middle East 4,500 years ago.
That’s the claim of a new paper, which traces the earliest recorded romantic kisses back about 1,000 years before the date usually given by most experts.
Researchers found evidence of kissing in clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia – now modern-day Iraq and Syria.
Unlike today, where kissing often leads to the bedroom, the earliest texts in the Sumerian language suggest that kissing may have been a post-coital activity enjoyed after sex.
Humanity’s earliest recorded kiss dates to about 4,500 years ago in the ancient Middle East — 1,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to researchers. Pictured: A Babylonian clay model of a nude couple on a couch having sex and kissing
Other than that, some things haven’t changed, with one text describing how a married woman was nearly led astray by another man’s kiss.
The research is a husband and wife collaboration – Dr Troels Pank Arboll, an expert on ancient Mesopotamia from the University of Copenhagen, and biologist Dr Sophie Lund Rasmussen, from the University of Oxford.
Her contribution includes a description of the theory that romantic, sexual kissing, which bonobos also enjoy, may have evolved to find out how healthy a partner was – based on finding out closely if they had bad breath.
Dr. Rasmussen said: ‘Kissing is something we take for granted, it feels like it’s been there forever, but it had to start somewhere and we think it’s older than previously assumed.
“The evidence from our closest relatives, the bonobos and chimpanzees, suggests we do it to create feelings of intimacy and belonging in our relationships.
“But it can also help us evaluate a potential partner because bad breath suggests something is wrong and they may not be healthy.”
The paper, published in the journal Science, sheds light on how kissing was first observed, based on texts from ancient Mesopotamia.
Ancient Mesopotamia is the name for the early human cultures that existed between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in present-day Iraq and Syria
Scientists said they have found literary evidence that kissing was practiced in the earliest Mesopotamian societies and may have even contributed to the spread of cold sores
Public displays of affection were then frowned upon when it came to kissing – just as they are in some cultures today.
Meanwhile, kissing a priestess, a person who was probably not meant to be sexually active, was believed to deprive the kisser of the ability to speak.
Kissing also existed at that time, which was not romantic, but used to express affection between parents and children or friends.
Kissing is described in the ancient Mesopotamian texts from 2500 BCE, with kissing apparently being common in several cultures and not originating in any specific region.
It was previously suggested that the earliest evidence of human lip kisses came from South Asia 3,500 years ago.
Some prehistoric imagery suggests kissing existed before writing, but they aren’t clear enough to be sure.
Dr. Arboll said, “Kissing should not be viewed as a custom that originated exclusively in a single region and spread from there, but rather appears to have been practiced in multiple ancient cultures over several millennia.”
The researchers also say that kissing may have had a long-lasting effect on the transmission of viruses such as herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1), which causes cold sores.
A disease known as buʾshanu in ancient medical texts from Mesopotamia may have referred to the cold sore virus.