History of Olive oil
The olive tree originated in the Middle East region and expanded west along the Mediterranean. The plant is entwined with the history of man and is a symbol of peace. This "tree of life" is now characteristic of the agricultural landscape of Salento.
The Puglia region provides an ideal climate for the growth of olives, and has done so throughout the millennia. Traces of olive have been found in excavations at Tower Reeds, and etched in Neolithic rock of the region suggesting that olives were successfully harvested in this area 8 - 10 thousand years ago.
The spread of the olive plant was enhanced by the early Phoenician and Greek navigators. Subsequently cultivated by Arab and Roman cultures, the cultivation of olives eventually spread along the lowlands and the sunny hills of the Italian Peninsula.
Today olive tree cultivation covers a surface area of around 9 million hectares, totalling 800 million plants.
The Olive in History
The development of the olive culture in Puglia was facilitated by the efforts of the early Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans who transported olives by sea. The use of olives had deep roots in these early civilisations, and because the olive tree is particularly hardy and resistant, the growth of olive trees has continued throughout the millennia.
The making of olive oil was well known to many cultures before the arrival of Christ. Evidence of primitive millstones for pressing olives is preserved in the museums from Clay Island to Haifa in Israel and in Egypt. Remnants of pictorial representations show how these early civilisations extracted the oil and used it for a variety of purposes. It was used as medicine, in cosmetics, and was also burned in lamps, supplying energy and heat.
Preserved in a national museum in Taranto, three ancient amphorae and a sarcophagus have been found of an athlete that participated in the Pentanes games in Athens. Amongst his winning trophies archaeologists have found vases of olive oil richly adorned with drawings of olive plants.
Olives were so prized that in the sixth century, it was forbidden to destroy an olive tree. Only in cases of extreme necessity could an olive tree be demolished. Today, such laws continue to safeguard the protection of this hardy plant.
During the Roman empire, the trading of olive oil was an important factor in Roman commerce. Good cultivation techniques were studied and documented by numerous men throughout history including Pliny the Elder, Catone, Columellas, and Varrone. Varronea advocated hand-picking techniques using specially designed staircases to reach the olives. However, Pliny disagreed, and felt that hand-picking damaged the plant because the harvesters accidentally "skinned" the trees.
During the Middle Ages, olive oil production decreased. However, it was restored in southern Italy during the Byzantine culture. And following the fall of the Roman empire, olive culture was again renewed, as Venetian navigators carried their produce from port to port. The harbours of Brindisi, Gallipoli, Otranto, and Taranto transported enormous quantities of olive oil, warehoused in Venice and Tuscany, to Russia, England, and Germany. The commerce of olive oil became so important that in 1559, the Spanish viceroy Parafran De Rivera prepared to construct a road from Naples to Puglia, with a route to Calabria and Abruzzo to allow a more rapid transportation of the olive oil.
The first decades of the 17th century marked the culmination of the five hundred years of prosperity that characterised the region of Otranto. However, it also marked the beginning of a long economic crises as climactic conditions and low temperatures invaded Europe after 1600. Crops failed and famine was widespread. Fortunately, towards the end of the century, agricultural production increased and olive groves once more dotted the agrarian landscape.
Throughout the ages, the skilled hands of "potatori" and "grafters" in Puglia have turned the wild olive plants into the woody cultivation’s zones that exist today. It has taken centuries for the region to achieve it's natural and incomparable panoramic beauty that owes so much to the cultivation of the splendid olive groves.
