Kissing as a sign of romantic or sexual attachment is at least 4,500 years old, a millennium older than commonly believed, according to a new Anglo-Danish study.
The authors' findings were published this week in the academic journal 'Science', and showed evidence that "kissing on the mouth is attested to in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt", as early as 2,500 BC.
The practice could, however, go back much further in antiquity to prehistoric times, Troels Pank Arbøll of the University of Copenhagen, who co-authored the study with Sophie Lund Rasmussen of the University of Oxford, told AFP.
As a specialist in the ancient Middle East, he was surprised to learn that romantic kissing between humans was attested to by an Indian source from 1,500 BC.
Related News
Arbøll, an expert on cuneiform writing (an ancient Mesopotamian script) revealed that he knew "there was earlier evidence in ancient Mesopotamia" on ancient clay tablets.
In the thousands of cuneiform texts available, the two researchers found few references to romantic kissing, but enough to be able to confirm "clear examples showing that kissing was common in ancient times."
Specialists on the subject distinguish between the "friendly-parental" kiss and the "romantic-sexual" kiss. Whilst the former seems universal across ages and locations, the latter is "not culturally universal."
