The
olive tree is an inseparable part of Greece.
In the everyday life and in the history lost and time, the olive tree continues play a central role in the continuation of the Greek culture and civilization.
The olive tree gave the Goddess Athena the right to have the main city of the Greek empire named after her.
Athens, the today Greece's capital, was named by Zeus that promised to give Attica to the god or goddess who made the most useful invention.
Athena brought the olive tree to the mankind as a gift and won Poseidon
who had offered a horse in the contest established by Zeus.
The olive oil extracted from that tree planted in the Acropolis mountain proved to be useful for light, heat, food, medicine and also for perfume.
Besides
mythology, the olive tree is believed to be native to Asia Minor and
spread from Iran, Syria and Palestine to the rest of the Mediterranean
basin 6,000 years ago.
Olive leaf
fossils have been found in Pliocene deposits at Mongardino in Italy.
Fossilised remains have been discovered in strata from the Upper Paleolithic
at the Relilai snail hatchery in North Africa, and pieces of wild olive
trees and stones have been uncovered in excavations of the Chalcolithic
period and the Bronze Age in Spain.
The existence of the olive tree therefore dates back to the twelfth millennium BC.
Olive tree is one of the oldest known cultivated trees in the world, being grown before the written language was invented.
Olives have been found in Crete by 3,000 BC and in Egyptian tombs from 2000 years BC. The Phoenicians spread the olive to the mediterranean shores of Africa and Southern Europe, around 16th century BC.
The olive culture was spread in the Greek and Roman empires. As those Mediterranean civilisations expanded their domains, leaving their imprint on Western culture, so did the olive trees.
The Prophet Muhammad of Islam advised his followers to apply olive oil to their bodies, 1400 years ago.
The early kings of the Greeks and Jews used to be anointed with olive oil.
During the Olympic Games, the Greeks anointed winning athletes.
Olive oil is a symbol of blessing in the Christian church, in baptisms and chrisms. The olive trees on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, cited in the Bible, are over 2000 years old.
Worldwide there are more than 600 olive tree varietals. DNA techniques have been used to help discern true varieties and to work out the olive family tree genealogy.
Wild-type
olive trees still exist in the Middle East, growing abundantly in thick
forests. These wild olive trees are believed to represent the original
stock from which all other olives descended by man manipulation for
many thousands of years. The olive tree appears to have spread from
Syria to Greece via Anatolia, although other hypotheses point to lower
Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, the Atlas Mountains, or certain areas of Europe
as its source area. Some believed the olive tree to be indigenous to
the entire Mediterranean Basin and considers Asia Minor to have been
the birthplace of the cultivated olive some six millennia ago.
The Assyrians and Babylonians were the only ancient civilizations in
the area that were not familiar with the olive tree.
In the last centuries, olive trees were spread outside the Mediterranean and today is farmed in places as far removed from its origins as in the USA, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, India, China and Pakistan.