It’s a millennium older than historians thought. Kissing as a sign of romantic or sexual attachment is a practice among humans that is at least 4,500 years old. This is the conclusion of an Anglo-Danish study, published this week in the journal Science.
She lays out evidence that “kissing on the mouth is attested in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt” as early as 2,500 BCE. The practice, however, could go back even further into ancient times to prehistoric times, explained Troels Pank Arbøll, of the University of Copenhagen, who co-authored the study with Sophie Lund Rasmussen of the University of Oxford.
A “friendly-parental” or “romantic-sexual” kiss
A specialist in the ancient Middle East, he is surprised to read in scientific publications that the human romantic kiss is attested by an Indian source from 1,500 BC. “I knew there was older evidence in ancient Mesopotamia,” explained Troels Pank Arbøll, an expert in cuneiform – an ancient Mesopotamian script – on ancient clay tablets.
In the thousands of cuneiform texts available, the two researchers found few references to the romantic kiss. But enough to be able to say “there are clear examples showing that kissing was common in ancient times”. Specialists in the subject distinguish between the “friendship-parental” kiss and the “romantic-sexual” kiss. While the first seems universal across ages and geographies, the second “is not culturally universal”.