9 June 2023 The Future is the Product of the Past

New study says earliest recorded kiss occurred 4500 years ago in Mesopotamia

The University of Copenhagen according to researchers, humanity’s earliest recorded kiss occurred around 4,500 years ago in the ancient Middle East – 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Kissing was practiced in the earliest Mesopotamian societies, according to scientists, and may even have contributed to the spread of cold sores. In their article, published in the journal Science, the researchers said the findings suggest kissing was common across many cultures and did not originate in a specific region.

According to the researchers, this contradicts a previous theory that the earliest evidence of human lip kissing came from a specific region of South Asia 3,500 years ago.

“In ancient Mesopotamia, which is the name for the early human cultures that existed between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in present-day Iraq and Syria, people wrote in cuneiform script on clay tablets. Many thousands of these clay tablets have survived to this day, and they contain clear examples that kissing was considered a part of romantic intimacy in ancient times, just as kissing could be part of friendships and family members’ relations,” says Dr Troels Pank Arbøll, an expert on the history of medicine in Mesopotamia at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

He continues: “Therefore, kissing should not be regarded as a custom that originated exclusively in any single region and spread from there but rather appears to have been practiced in multiple ancient cultures over several millennia.”

Studies on bonobos and chimpanzees – the closest living relatives to humans – have shown they engage in kissing.

This suggests the practice of kissing is a fundamental behaviour in humans and explains why it can be found across cultures, the scientists said.

Babylonian clay model showing a nude couple on a couch engaged in sex and kissing. Date: 1800 BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Babylonian clay model showing a nude couple on a couch engaged in sex and kissing. Date: 1800 BC. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum

The researchers also said kissing may have unintentionally played a role in the transmission of viruses such as herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1), which causes cold sores.

Dr. Arboll said: “There is a substantial corpus of medical texts from Mesopotamia, some of which mention a disease with symptoms reminiscent of the herpes simplex virus 1.”

But he added that ancient medical texts can be influenced by cultural and religious concepts so they cannot be read at face value.

Dr. Arboll said: “It is nevertheless interesting to note some similarities between the disease known as buʾshanu in ancient medical texts from Mesopotamia and the symptoms caused by herpes simplex infections.

“The bu’shanu disease was located primarily in or around the mouth and throat, and symptoms included vesicles in or around the mouth, which is one of the dominant signs of herpes infection.”

Recent studies have shown that modern-day viruses that spread through kissing, such as HSV-1, Epstein-Barr virus, which causes glandular fever, and human parvovirus B19, which causes a bright red rash on the cheeks in children, were present in ancient times.

Dr. Sophie Lund Rasmussen, of the University of Oxford, said: “If the practice of kissing was widespread and well-established in a range of ancient societies, the effects of kissing in terms of pathogen transmission must likely have been more or less constant.”

Dr. Arbøll and Dr. Rasmussen conclude that future findings from ancient DNA research will benefit from an interdisciplinary approach, as they will inevitably lead to discussions about complex historical developments and social interactions, such as kissing as a driver of early disease transmission.

Cover Photo: Babylonian clay model showing a nude couple on a couch engaged in sex and kissing. Date: 1800 BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum

University of Copenhagen

Banner
Related Post

An unexpected shipwreck was unearthed at the Tallinn construction site

18 April 2022

18 April 2022

During the construction of the office building on Lootsi Street in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital on the Baltic Sea, a shipwreck...

Ushabti figurines on display at Izmir Archeology Museum

18 September 2021

18 September 2021

The 2,700-year-old “Ushabti” statuettes, discovered in archaeological digs in western Turkey and used in Egyptian burial ceremonies, are being shown...

A first-of-its-kind Ayyanar stone idol found in Vellore, India

25 June 2022

25 June 2022

An Ayyanar stone idol, the first of its kind in Vellore, was discovered at Thandalai Krishnapuram (TK Puram) in Tamil...

The Half of the Rare Oil Lamp Found in Jerusalem May be in Budapest

9 May 2021

9 May 2021

We had recently reported on a grotesque lamp found in Jerusalem. The other half of the oil lamp, which is...

Archeologists find a 3,500-year-old mosaic in central Turkey

16 September 2021

16 September 2021

Archaeologists have discovered a 3,500-year-old mosaic in central Turkey, which might be one of the world’s oldest. The impressive power...

1,800-year-old Roman remains discovered in valley of eastern Turkey

21 February 2022

21 February 2022

Roman remains dating back 1800 years have been found in a valley in eastern Turkey. Among the Roman ruins found...

The largest stone coffin grave found so far at the Yoshinogari Ruins -3.2 meters

30 May 2023

30 May 2023

A grave with a stone coffin around 2.3 meters long and dating to the latter part of the Yayoi Period...

The oldest grave in northern Germany 10,500 years old

14 October 2022

14 October 2022

Archaeologists have discovered the oldest known human remains in northern Germany in a 10,500-year-old cremation grave in Lüchow, Schleswig-Holstein. The...

An intact Punic Tomb was Discovered in Malta

29 May 2021

29 May 2021

İntact a tomb dating to the Punic period was found in Tarxien. The Superintendence of Cultural Heritage has announced the...

Archaeologists find the largest bronze beast of Sanxingdui ruins

4 September 2022

4 September 2022

The largest and only one of its kind discovered in China to date, the bronze beast was discovered by archaeologists...

Discoveries on the island of Minorca shed light on the history of Roman conquests in the Balearic Islands

31 July 2021

31 July 2021

The University of Alicante Institute for Archeology and Historical Heritage (INAPH) Researchs discovered a collection of buried Roman antiquities going...

“Mosaic of the Wine Harvest” mosaic to be exhibited in November in Turkey’s Hatay

26 October 2021

26 October 2021

The mosaic depicting the grape harvest, which is considered to date from the Late Roman period, equivalent to the 5th...

Archaeologists unearth human spines threaded onto reed posts in Peru

5 February 2022

5 February 2022

Archaeologists have found almost 192 examples of human vertebrae threaded onto reed posts 500 years ago in the Chincha Valley...

18,000 years ago, late Pleistocene humans may have hatched and raised the “World’s Most Dangerous Bird.”

2 October 2021

2 October 2021

Researchers say the eggshell is an understudied archaeological material that has the potential to clarify past interactions between humans and...

The excavation, which started in a cave in Turkey’s Mardin, turned into a huge underground city

19 April 2022

19 April 2022

In an underground city known used as a settlement in the early Christian era, in the Midyat district of Mardin,...

Comments
Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *