Long story short - Part 1

Olive Oil in Ancient Times

A dove holding an olive branch is an iconography old enough to tell us that the olive was something present since the very beginning of human civilization. However, recent findings in the Southern coasts of Israel suggest that olive farming was practiced long before Christianity, and can be roughly dated back to 5000 BC (between 8000 and 7000 years ago). Olive trees were known in ancient Egypt, and rudimentary mortars to extract olive juice in Syria and Palestine were used around the same period. What is certain, is that 2500 years later Hammurabi code was already regulating the olive oil trade. 

Then, olive trees reached the southwestern Mediterranean islands and arrived in Greece, as evidenced by the numerous findings in the Minoan palaces in Crete. The Odyssey describes the winners of athletic games awarded amphorae full of refined olive oil as prizes. Over the centuries, olive groves continued spreading to Tunisia, Southern Italy, and eventually Spain. 

 Ancient Classic essays were dedicated to olive farming, describing olive trees as fragile, requiring hard, painstaking work. Olive oil was not just a food, but a medicine, a cosmetic, a ritual implement. Olive oil became the fuel of society or, as it was commonly depicted, its liquid gold. We know that olives were handpicked one by one, but also that this work was fairly compensated, and that the olive tree was considered a symbol of peace, wisdom, and victory.

Although wild olive trees had been present in Italy since the Mesolithic, the pivotal switch from scattered, wild trees to farmed groves occurred between the VIII and the VII century BC. From that moment, thanks also to the technological advances introduced in Ancient Rome, olive oil could be produced in surplus, and it soon became something suitable for trade. Around the VII century BC, olive oil production was one of the most profitable activities.

Not surprisingly, figures like the negotiatores (olive oil brokers) were tasked with classifying and appraising oils based on the production method, given that fraud and adulteration became quickly rampant.

Moreover, at the time of the Roman Empire preserving olive oil was extremely hard due to the lack of adequate filtration and storage. The average olive oil was most likely rancid, a defect usually covered up by adding sea salt. For this reason, it became customary to preserve the olives instead, and squeeze them at the last moment - a little trick to obtain “fresh” oil when needed.

Olive oil production was so prized that when young Romans were called to serve in the army, they could be released from their duty if they proved to be tending olive trees covering at least half an acre. But the golden age of olive oil was almost over: the appeal of Roman countryside started to fade, and the increasingly burdening tributes paid in oil to the Emperors, eventually emptied the Italian olive oil reserves. Italian production decreased, replaced by olive oil imported from Spanish and African provinces. With the end of the Roman Empire and the Barbaric invasions, olive oil trade came to a halt. Until then considered sacred and cherished, the olive tree lost its allure.