Archaeological Exhibition Explores History of Olive Oil in the Mediterranean

An exhi­bi­tion at the Collège de France in Paris, a five-cen­tury-old pub­lic insti­tu­tion of higher edu­ca­tion, research and debate, pre­sented archae­o­log­i­cal dis­cov­er­ies and objects from sev­eral French muse­ums, includ­ing the Louvre’s Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiq­ui­ties, from the Archaic period to the fourth cen­tury CE.

“Wines, oils and per­fumes: an archae­o­log­i­cal voy­age around the ancient Mediterranean” pro­vided a unique oppor­tu­nity to explore the pro­duc­tion and trade of olive oil and other food prod­ucts in Roman Gaul, Italy, Greece and Egypt.

Curated by a team of experts led by pro­fes­sor Jean-Pierre Brun—a field archae­ol­o­gist and senior sci­en­tist of the French National Scientific Research Council (CNRS) who has headed the Center Jean-Bérard in Naples, a French base for the his­tor­i­cal and archae­o­log­i­cal explo­ration of ancient south­ern Italy — the event was also a trib­ute to Brun’s life­long ded­i­ca­tion to archae­ol­ogy.

In his inau­gural lec­ture for the Chair of Technology and Economy in the Ancient Mediterranean, he explained that dur­ing the Roman Empire, to achieve an effi­cient orga­ni­za­tion and ratio­nal­iza­tion of sup­plies to the army and the large urban cen­ters, Sicily and Egypt spe­cial­ized in grain pro­duc­tion and Gaul for wine pro­duc­tion, while Spain [the Roman province of Hispania Baetica, cor­re­spond­ing to mod­ern Andalusia] and Africa [mainly Tripolitania, the north African coastal area of mod­ern Libya] spe­cial­ized in olive oil.

According to Brun, the cen­tral­iza­tion of agri­cul­tural goods pro­duc­tion fol­low­ing Roman polit­i­cal pow­er’s demands shaped the con­quered ter­ri­to­ries’ econ­omy and con­tributed to the struc­ture of the coun­try­side.

This can be seen, for instance, in the remains of ancient olive farms in the Valley of the Baetis, between Córdoba and Seville in Spain — Baetican olive oil pro­duc­tion reached its peak between the first and third cen­turies CE — and in the Tunisian Sahel. These regions were not a pri­ori suited for olive grow­ing.

Nowadays, olive oil is mainly intended for food con­sump­tion, and the exhi­bi­tion recalled its other uses in antiq­uity.

It was com­monly used for med­i­c­i­nal pur­poses and rit­u­als, as an ingre­di­ent in facial creams and as an oint­ment in per­sonal hygiene treat­ments and mas­sage at Greek and Roman sport­ing facil­i­ties and ther­mal baths.

Moreover, in those ancient times, olive oil was also used to fuel oil lamps of dif­fer­ent types, some with mul­ti­ple noz­zles. Oil lamps were used for indoor light­ing in those areas where pro­duc­tion was most promi­nent.

In per­fume-mak­ing and other per­fumed oils with ther­a­peu­tic prop­er­ties, the pre­cious oleum omphacium made from green olives was often used as a car­rier oil, par­tic­u­larly in Roman Gaul, Italy and Greece, serv­ing as a nat­ural medium in fra­grant for­mu­la­tions.

One of these ancient for­mu­la­tions was on dis­play at the exhi­bi­tion in Paris, and vis­i­tors could also smell the fra­grance.

Recreated through years-long research con­ducted by the Center Jean-Bérard, the antique rhodi­non with its del­i­cate rose fra­grance was very pop­u­lar in Greek and Roman antiq­uity and was also cited in Homer’s Iliad.

The exhibits also included a model lay­out of the per­fumery of the Greek island of Delos, which Challimachus (third cen­tury BCE) con­sid­ered ​“the most sacred of islands.”

Abundant and com­plex evi­dence from archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions, study­ing set­tle­ments, places and forms of work, food and san­i­ta­tion has also made Brun pon­der ques­tions of growth in antiq­uity — the fruit of people’s well-being and edu­ca­tion.

These find­ings can be com­pared with writ­ten sources to help bet­ter under­stand the socioe­co­nomic and tech­no­log­i­cal sys­tems of the past.

However, Brun has writ­ten about the dif­fi­culty of address­ing his­tory in all its dimen­sions when the data avail­able con­cern­ing ordi­nary peo­ple is lim­ited.

He has under­lined that only par­tial fac­tual reports and lit­er­ary com­men­taries and inscrip­tions, mainly of the upper classes, are avail­able to his­to­ri­ans, con­sid­er­ing that ​“more or less all the writ­ten sources from antiq­uity have dis­ap­peared dur­ing the Middle Ages.”

These thoughts are rel­e­vant today for two rea­sons. First, there is a risk of los­ing an arche­o­log­i­cal legacy through the destruc­tion of mate­r­ial archives, which are those buried in the soil and lost through works and rede­vel­op­ments.

Secondly, too lit­tle atten­tion has been given to archae­o­log­i­cal research on tools of pro­duc­tion and vehi­cles of com­merce asso­ci­ated with the remains left by ordi­nary peo­ple with­out the power or the cul­ture to pro­vide writ­ten evi­dence.

The over­whelm­ing schol­arly focus on epig­ra­phy (the study of inscrip­tions on ancient arti­facts), sculp­ture, paint­ing, archi­tec­ture and urban­ism has cre­ated a his­tor­i­cal bias toward those in power.

Thus, the recent exhi­bi­tion at the Collège de France can be con­sid­ered a recog­ni­tion of Brun’s con­sci­en­tious and ded­i­cated endeavor to recon­struct a for­got­ten his­tory of rural and urban masses in their pro­duc­tive roles — includ­ing the his­tory of olive oil pro­duc­tion and trade in the Mediterranean — and an invi­ta­tion to reflect on how even Greco-Roman civ­i­liza­tion, despite its many suc­cesses, has seen decline set in.