Museum of the Olive and Olive Oil, Sparti
There’s no avoiding the importance of the olive in Greece. The trees are all around you, large and small, and it seems that every family has their own source of oil. In Crete, in particular, there is an incredibly high rate of consumption; we have been told that Cretans consume an average of over 30kg of olive oil per year! It’s way higher than the Greek average, and the Greeks are the highest consumers in the world. So, when we heard that there was a museum dedicated to the central role of olives in Cretan life and also to the history of oil production, we thought that was a stop we couldn’t miss.
The Museum of the Olive and Greek Olive Oil | PIOP
The first incredible sight in this museum is replicas of the tablets containing reference to olives in Linear B script. Isn’t that amazing? To think of people writing of olives and oil and their importance, way back in the time of the Myceneans, around 1300 BCE. These tablets contain the first known writing about olives and olive oil.
These three symbols are the Linear B representations of, from the left, Olive Tree, Olive, and Olive Oil.
These are fossils of olive tree leaves which were found on Santorini, dating from 50-60,000 years ago, showing that the olive tree has been in this region for many’s a long year.
A whole floor of the museum is dedicated to showing the evolution of methods of production of olive oil. There are replicas of a Prehistoric, a Hellenistic and a Byzantine olive press.
Now for a short lesson in olive oil production😊 Olive oil is extracted from the olive using three steps: first, crushing the olives to separate the olive flesh from the stone; next, pressing the olive pulp; and, finally, separating the oil from the rest of the liquids produced.
The earliest example of olive oil production installations is located in Haifa, Israel, dating from around 4500 BCE. In Crete, the earliest examples found date from the Late Bronze Age, 1600-1100 BCE.
In those times, the olives would have been crushed using pounders and stone basins, such as this replica.
Once crushed, the olive pulp was then placed in sacks and taken to be pressed on a stone base, using a lever. This was the first technological development introduced to oil production, during the Late Bronze age, and the lever remained in use for over 3,000 years. If it ain’t broken, why fix it!
Here’s Olwen, having a go:
So then, after the first oil had been extracted by pressing, boiling water was poured onto the sacks in order to extract the remainder of the oil. And this is why we see reference to ‘cold-pressed’ extra virgin olive oil: this oil comes from the first pressing. We did not know this!
Additionally, the difference between extra virgin and virgin olive oil is that extra virgin must have an acidity level of 0.8% or less, and have zero impurities, whereas virgin olive oil may have acidity of up to 2% and may contain a certain level of impurities.
The third step, separation of the oil from the water and other liquids produced by the pressing happened by leaving the liquid to settle. The oil, being lighter, rose to the top. Forty days were allowed in order for the liquid to be considered fully settled and the oil could be skimmed off the top. The olive oil was then stored in large clay pots called pithoi.
In the Hellenistic period, there was a development in the production method, which was that the first stage of crushing was done in a rotating mill. See Olwen demonstrating here:
A winch was also added to the lever press during the Hellenistic period.
A wooden screw was then added to the lever system during the Roman period:
In the courtyard, we found an olive mill which was in use up until 1962, showing that animals were still used in pre-industrialised olive oil production right up until the middle of the 20th century:
These are the iron screw presses which were used by the same family, complete with a wooden winch. The iron screw press had been introduced during the Post-Byzantine period.
Back indoors again, we found models demonstrating the various ways in which industrialsation has changed production methods since the mid-19th century. Developments have included presses powered by water mills, steam, and diesel.
Here’s a short clip of us watching a model of an engine-powered olive press.
There was also a section on how olive oil soap is traditionally made. They make it look so easy!
So, there are four ingredients needed for homemade olive oil soap. First, the sediment from the oil (and also oil that has been used for frying!); added to this is water, caustic potash (potassium hydroxide), and salt.
These are stirred together in a huge pot and left overnight. The following morning, the boiling begins. The ingredients are stirred constantly over a fierce fire. When the soap begins to set, it will crumble off the hands like fish scales.
It is then left to cool slightly, before being poured into moulds and, once cool, it is sliced into bars.
And, as if all of that excitment wasn’t enough, we also unexpectedly came across a huge display marking the bicentenary of Greek Independence – constructed entirely in Playmobil!
And so ended a fascinating visit to the Sparti Museum of the Olive, and we were back on the road once more.