Photo: THE BRITISH MUSEUM/CC BY-SA 4.0
Love is part of the human condition.
It can be expressed in a variety of ways, from platonic hugs to passionate smooches to caring acts.
But perhaps no symbol of love jumps to mind as swiftly as the kiss.
Photo: THE BRITISH MUSEUM/CC BY-SA 4.0
So, when did this kissing all begin?
As it turns out, the ancients loved to kiss and tell.
The earliest texts to mention romantic kissing date back to Mesopotamia 4,500 years ago.
A couple kiss in a wall painting from ancient Pompeii. (Photo: ArchaiOptix viaWikimedia Commons,CC BY-SA 4.0)
As reported inScience, kissing is hard to study.
Certainly, all seem to agree that kissing sprung up independently across the globe.
These smooches are seen in erotic contexts.
“The Stolen Kiss,” Jean-Honoré Fragonard, late 1780s. (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
The authors note, Two texts from 1800 BCE are especially revealing.
Regardless of the impetus, the apparently widespread nature of kissing among ancient humans likely meant widespread saliva-swapping.
It’s possible this was the cause of the disease busanu, which appears in ancient Mesopotamian medical texts.
Its symptoms included vesicles around the mouth area, like oral herpes.
Even as far back as 100,000 years ago, Neanderthals may have swapped saliva with humans.
Scientists havespeculatedthis based on the transmission of an oral microbe,Methanobrevibacter oralis.
The history of kissing is a contested mix of archeology, psychology, and biology.
A couple kiss in a wall painting from ancient Pompeii.
The Stolen Kiss, Jean-Honore Fragonard, late 1780s.
