Kissing is 1,000 years older than first thought, Middle East tablets show

Clay tablets reveal kissing was integral to romantic, familial and friendly relations in ancient Mesopotamia

'The Palaces of Nimroud restored' by 19th century artist James Fergusson was based on an ancient site in what is now Iraq. Getty

The first documented kiss happened in the Middle East 4,500 years ago, about 1,000 years earlier than previously believed, researchers have found.

The act was recorded in ancient Mesopotamia, which roughly corresponds to modern-day Iraq.

Kissing was documented on clay tablets from the region, researchers said in an article published in the journal Science.

It suggests kissing was integral to romantic, familial and friendly relations.

The team was led by Dr Troels Pank Arboll, an assistant professor who researches Mesopotamian medicine at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

“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,” he said.

“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.”

Researchers suggested that kissing in ancient times may also led to the spread of viruses including herpes simplex virus 1, which is causes cold sores.

Mesopotamian medical texts refer to a condition called “bu'shanu”, which led to symptoms that mirror those of the herpes simplex virus.

But Dr Arboll said those texts could not be read at face value because of cultural and religious concepts at the time.

Other studies have shown that some viruses around today also affected ancient communities.

“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,” said Dr Sophie Lund Rasmussen, a researcher at the University of Oxford.

Dr Arboll spoke to The National and shed light on the social implications of kissing in ancient Mesopotamian societies.

“Mesopotamian sources indicate that society attempted to regulate romantic-sexual kissing,” he said.

“It was not something one should do openly on the street, and it seems that it was preferably practised among married couples.

“Nevertheless, the need for such norms indicates its wide practice in society.”

Dr Arboll added that the evidence underscores a broader geographical practice of romantic-sexual kissing in the ancient world, especially in societies with a certain degree of social stratification, such as those in Mesopotamia and India.

This groundbreaking research invites a fresh perspective on human behaviour and social customs.

“Our study pushes the history of the romantic-sexual kiss back 1,000 years,” Dr Arboll said.

“It raises important points for future discussions, namely to what extent kissing could have accelerated disease transmission.

“We encourage more collaboration between historic disciplines and natural sciences for a holistic perspective on cultural practices.”

As for the role kissing played in transmitting diseases in ancient times, Dr Arboll believes it is reasonable to discuss disease transmission routes, especially since there is evidence of pathogens that could be transmitted by saliva and kissing in the ancient historical periods.

“I do not assume that the effect of kissing on disease transmission would change wildly in modern societies,” he said.

He also shared exciting plans for future research, emphasising the wealth of knowledge that ancient Mesopotamian medicine holds, particularly regarding disease conceptualisation and healing practices.

“The study of ancient Mesopotamian medicine is an extremely productive field, he said.

“For the past decades, the few people in our field have been mainly involved in making the massive corpus of healing texts available to the scientific community. There's still much to explore.”

When asked about the understanding of disease and its transmission in ancient societies, Dr Arboll said that their ideas were influenced by religion and were clearly different from modern medical theories.

“Diseases were seen as being caused by gods and demons, and many names for diseases functioned as both disease and demonic entity,” he explained.

“Nonetheless, there were almost pragmatic means to avoid infection, such as avoiding drinking from an ill woman’s cup.

“Ancient disease concepts were obviously different from the diagnoses found in modern medicine, and they do not correlate to one another.”

This discovery opens the door for future studies on how these ancient diseases may have spread and how the people tried to avoid being afflicted.

“The sources I work with represent a timespan of a little more than 3,000 years, the first half of history,” he said.

“So each new study adds significant depth to what we know about humans and how they, in these specific cultures, dealt with each other and the world.”