The towering Greek philosopher and poet Homer described olive oil as “liquid gold” and the Greek tragedian extraordinaire Sophocles called olives “our sweet silvered wet nurse”. Olive oil is the oil obtained from the olive, the fruit of the “Olea europaea” or European olive. Unlike other common oils that are extracted from seeds like mustard, canola, soya and sunflower, the oil is produced by pressing whole olives. Over millennia, the cool, green oil has been one of life’s enduring necessities and has been commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, soaps, detergents, lubricants, traditional oil lamps and religious and spiritual rituals. The well-known American writer and olive oil aficionado Tom Mueller in his best-selling treatise on olive oil entitled “Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil” has aptly observed, “an age-old food with space-age qualities that medical science is just beginning to understand.” The first official documentation of olive oil production can be traced to the rare archives of Ebla, one of the earliest kingdoms in Syria. It consists of 12 cuneiform tablets of 2400 BC vintage describing olive tree plantations owned by the King and Queen and chronicling 4000 jars of olive oil being reserved for the royal family and their staff and 7000 jars for the common folk. One of the earliest olive oil related archaeological finds were huge jars found in Ebla which were filled with oil meant for trade with Egypt through the port city of Ugarit.
The Egyptians, who consumed copious quantities of olive oil during the time of the Pharaohs, procured it from Crete, the largest Greek island, and used it during funeral and purification rites and in the building of pyramids and embalming of mummies entombed therein. Mycenaean tablets and old mud documents tell us about the importance of olive oil in the court of King Minos for the economy of Crete. In ancient Egypt, perfumes and cosmetics were made out of olive oil and were stored in small bottles or vials of alabaster or glass. In the iconic tomb of Tutankhamun (colloquially referred to as “King Tut”), ornaments and wreaths fashioned from olive branches were unearthed. Olive cultivation and oil extraction were brought to the Iberian Peninsula, located in the southwest corner of Europe, around 1050 BC, by red sun-burnt seafaring Phoenicians (derived from the Greek word “Phoinos” meaning “blood red”) from the Red Sea region. Between 600-700 BC, the Greeks struck deep “olive” roots in the Iberian Peninsula. They believed that Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, bestowed the gift of olive upon mankind.
The first Olympic torch in ancient Greece was a burning olive branch and Olympic champions were crowned with the “kotinos” or “laurel wreath” fashioned from olive branches intertwined to form a circle or a horseshoe! But it was undoubtedly the Romans who transformed olive oil production into a veritable industry. They grounded olives with stone mills and crushed them with presses.
The importance of olive oil to the Roman Empire was immeasurable. Olive oil amphorae have been found in all Roman provinces and Monte Testaccio in Rome, located a short distance away from the east bank of the River Tiber, is a living testament to the enormity of the trade. This artificial mound was created from the remains of 53 million amphorae discarded during the first 250 years of the Common Era covering an incredible area of 20,000 square metres at its base. In these amphorae, some 6 billion litres of olive oil were imported mostly from the Iberian Peninsula.
The heroic Roman Emperor Publius Aelius Hadrianus Augustus, popularly known as Hadrian (who rebuilt the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma and Hadrian’s Wall, which marked the northern limit of Britannia), even had a coin struck bearing the image of an olive branch and the inscription “Hispania”. Whilst the fall of the Roman Empire led to a steady decline in olive production in most of Europe, Southern Spain witnessed an upsurge in cultivation with the arrival of the Arabs, who brought with them new varieties and production techniques. In the land of the Hebrews, King Solomon and King David placed considerable importance on the cultivation of olive trees. Significantly, a dove carrying an olive branch is one of the classical symbols of the Jewish people.
Coming to India, the mythical seaport of Muziris (extolled by the Tamil Sangam poets as “Muciri”) was once a bustling Indo-Roman trading centre. The epic Roman author and philosopher Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder, has described this port in his monumental encyclopaedia “Naturalis Historia” as “primum emporium Indiae”. It was situated in the Kodungaloor — Chettu belt in the South Indian state of Kerala. In 1983, fragments of imported Roman amphorae, which were used for transporting olive oil, were discovered in Pattanam along with Roman coins and other artefacts which verily proved the existence of Muziris. In my student days in Delhi, I was fascinated by Kubla Khan (the mighty fifth Mongol Emperor and the grandson of the fearsome Genghis Khan) and his manifold exploits and used to recite the venerable English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s timeless poem “Kubla Khan” at school and college functions in the style and manner of Richard Burton, the powerful Welsh stage and cinema actor widely admired for his mellifluous baritone voice.
During those days, I read a delightful story about Kubla Khan. The Emperor was drawn to certain inexplicable aspects of Christianity and had implored the legendary Italian merchant traveller Marco Polo, his father Niccolò and his uncle Maffeo, to bring him the sacred oil from the lamps that burnt eternally to illuminate the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (worshipped by faithful
Christians as the hallowed spot of the crucifixion, resurrection and the tomb of Lord Jesus Christ), which was reputed to have magical healing properties.
Startlingly, when William Dalrymple, the erudite Scottish historian, writer and author of “In Xanadu: A Quest”, visited the church, he found an elderly Irish Franciscan artfully filling the lamps in Lord Jesus Christ’s tomb with olive oil, and was pleasantly surprised to observe that this had been the prevalent practice since time immemorial. I have in my well-stocked private library the original 1977 Penguin Books publication of “Selected Poems” of Pablo Neruda (born as Ricardo Eliecer Neftalà Reyes Baloalto), the prolific Chilean poet, writer and politician who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971, and am highly spurred to conclude with the English translation of his enchanting poem “Oda al aceite” or “Ode to Olive Oil.”
Ode to Olive Oil
Near the murmuring
In the grain fields,
of the waves
Of wind in the oat-stalks
The olive tree
With its silver-covered mass
Severe in its lines
In its twisted
Heart in the earth:
The graceful Olives
Polished
By the hands Which made
The dove
And the oceanic Snail:
Green, Innumerable,
Immaculate Nipples
Of nature And there
In The dry Olive Groves
Where Alone
The blue sky with cicadas
And the hard earth Exist
There The prodigy
The perfect Capsules
Of the olives
Filling With their
constellations,
the foliage Then later,
The bowls, The miracle,
The olive oil.
I love
(The writer is an internationally reputed senior lawyer practising in the Supreme Court of India, various High Courts and Tribunals in India. Views are personal)