Clay tablets from Mesopotamia depict two kinds of smooches: kisses of respect and more intimate locked lips.
. Sometime in the past, our ancestors had the idea to smack their mouths together and call it romantic. And though we may not know who gave the first smooch, ancient records of these steamy sessions are helping us piece together when people started locking lips.written in India in 1500 BCE.
“Given what we know about the history of kissing in humans and the myriad of similar kissing-like behaviors observed around the animal kingdom, I’m not surprised by these findings,” says, who was not involved in the study. “Whether romantic or not, kissing influences our bodies and brains in so many meaningful ways by guiding our emotions and decisions.”Clay tablets left behind by ancient Mesopotamians in 2500 BCE describe two types of kissing. The first was the friendly-parental kiss.
The second was the lip kiss with a more erotic and intimate overtone. However, there were a few cultural expectations when it came to this type of kissing. Romantic kissing was an action reserved for married couples, as people frowned upon any PDA in Mesopotamia. Kissing among unmarried folks was taboo, considered to be giving in to sexual temptation. People not meant to be sexually active, such as priestesses, were thought to lose their ability to speak if they kissed someone.
Mesopotamians likely did not think infectious diseases were spread through kissing, since it is not listed anywhere in the medical texts. However, they had some religiously influenced ideas of contamination, which spurred some measures to avoid spreading the disease. For example, a letter from around 1775 BCE describes a woman in a palace harem with lesions all over her body.
There’s still a long way to go in understanding the ancient history of kissing. But the study does clear up one thing—all the smooching our ancestors did is probably why oral herpes and other kiss-transmitted diseases are a global problem today.
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