2023-05-20 03:29:57
From millennium to millennium, certain habits do not change. Kissing as a sign of romantic or sexual attachment is a practice among humans dating back at least 4,500 years, a millennium earlier than commonly believed. This was explained to AFP on Friday by the authors of an Anglo-Danish study.
Their work, published this week in the journal Science, show 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 much further in antiquity to prehistoric times, explained Troels Pank Arbøll, of the University of Copenhagen, who co-authored the study.
A distinction between the “friendly-parental” kiss and the “romantic-sexual” kiss
A specialist in the ancient Middle East, he is surprised to read in scientific publications that the romantic human kiss is attested by an Indian source from 1500 BC. “I knew there was older evidence in ancient Mesopotamia,” explained Mr. 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”.
In addition, specialists in the subject generally 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”.
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