As Valentine's Day approaches, it’s the perfect time to explore why humans kiss. From a strictly reproductive standpoint, kisses are certainly not required and many cultures have flourished without a single peck. The behavior is only part instinct, having an enormous cultural influence. By tracing the human lip print back thousands of years, we can see its deep cultural traditions.
The earliest literary evidence we have for kissing dates back to around 1500 B.C. from India’s Vedic Sanskrit texts, the foundations of the Hindu religion. There is no mention of the word “kiss,” but we do find intriguing references to “licking,” and “drinking moisture of the lips.” By the third century A.D., the Vatsyayana Kamasutra (better known as the Kama Sutra), included an entire chapter lavishly describing ways of kissing a lover.
There is no doubt that people in India have been kissing for thousands of years, but they were not the only ones. A Babylonian creation story known as the Enuma elish recorded on stone tablets in the seventh century B.C. contains several kisses in greeting and supplication. More famously, the Old Testament (estimated to have been assembled during the 12 centuries before the birth of Christ) abounds with this gesture. For example, Jacob deceptively kisses his blind and ailing father while dressed as his twin brother Esau, stealing Isaac’s blessing along with the power to rule. A more sensual kiss is described in the Song of Solomon, which reads, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: For thy love is better than wine.”
From ancient Greece, we see kissing in Homer’s epics, passed down through oral tradition and finally recorded between the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. Odysseus is kissed by his slaves upon returning home and King Priam kisses Achilles’ hands to plead for the return of his deceased son’s body. Centuries later, The Histories by Herodotus, includes kissing among the Persians. Ethiopian kings were kissed on the foot and Numidian kings were considered too supreme to be kissed at all. Herodotus also reported that Egyptians would not kiss Greeks on their mouths because Greeks consumed their sacred animal, the cow.
The earliest literary evidence we have for kissing dates back to around 1500 B.C. from India’s Vedic Sanskrit texts, the foundations of the Hindu religion. There is no mention of the word “kiss,” but we do find intriguing references to “licking,” and “drinking moisture of the lips.” By the third century A.D., the Vatsyayana Kamasutra (better known as the Kama Sutra), included an entire chapter lavishly describing ways of kissing a lover.
From ancient Greece, we see kissing in Homer’s epics, passed down through oral tradition and finally recorded between the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. Odysseus is kissed by his slaves upon returning home and King Priam kisses Achilles’ hands to plead for the return of his deceased son’s body. Centuries later, The Histories by Herodotus, includes kissing among the Persians. Ethiopian kings were kissed on the foot and Numidian kings were considered too supreme to be kissed at all. Herodotus also reported that Egyptians would not kiss Greeks on their mouths because Greeks consumed their sacred animal, the cow.
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