History of Olive Oil

The history of olive is blended with a mixture of reality, superstition and imagination! And its origin dates back to an unfathomable past of human history, eons old; thus, caring researchers face great difficulty in specifying the location and the date of the beginning of planting olive.

However, it is beyond the shadow of a doubt that the history of olive is associated with the history of the Mediterranean Sea basin and that it is an important part of the civilization and culture of this region’s nations. In fact, the heavenly religions and the humankind civilizations sanctified the olive tree inasmuch as poets and artists immortalized it in their works.
The Mediterranean coasts of Syria and Palestine are considered to be a true origin and a cradle for raising the olive tree; from there it has spread throughout the rest of the world. As a matter of fact, the olive tree has been existing since the Stone Age, which means more than 12 000 years B.C. and it became clear too that there were cultivated olive farms in both Syria and Palestine. Olive boughs and seeds were also discovered in the ruins of Ebla, in Idleb, dating back to more than 2500 years B.C.; also, they were found in the pharaoh tombs in Egypt dating back to more than 1500 years B.C. and there are undeniable proofs of their existence, in the same period of time, in the Libyan Oases and on the coasts of the Aegean Sea in Turkey and Greece.

History registers that the Phoenicians spread the olive plant as of the 16-th century B.C., through the Greek islands; the spread continued gaining utmost importance under the rule of Saulon in the 14-th century B.C.

Starting from the 11-th century B.C. (that is in the year 1030 B.C.) olive entered Spain, for the first time, by means of the Phoenicians, the masters of the sea at that time. In the 6-th century B.C. olive moved to several of Mediterranean coasts through Libyan and Tunisian coasts and the Romans helped in spreading it in the Mediterranean basin, considering it as a handy weapon used as a factor in the settlement of the inhabitants. On the other hand, Arab Muslims played an important role in spreading and developing this plant by transporting various brands of olive to Mediterranean coasts of Europe; especially, Spain, as a consequence, the Spanish words for ‘olive’ (aceituna) and ‘olive oil’ (aceite) are borrowed from their Arabic counterparts in that period.
Later, olive was taken to America together with the Spanish conquistadors, and as of the year 1560 A.D. it began to appear in Mexico and Peru, from there to California, Chili and Argentina. Olive continued its spreading in modern times reaching to South Africa, Australia, Japan and China.

Status quo of Olive and Olive Oil in Syria

Olive is regarded as one of the cardinal and most ancient agricultural products is Syria, the birthplace of the olive tree. The total olive plantations in Syria reached up to approximately 500 000 hectares; the number of olive trees reached up to more than 70 million, of which 60% are in the productive stage; the rest are seedlings, which did not enter that stage yet. The annual olive oil production in Syria was 165 000 tons in 2002/2003. Olive plantations are chiefly located in the northern and western regions (Aleppo, Idleb, Lattakia and Tartous), it is also widely spread in the southern and middle regions (Dar’a, As-Souweyda’, Al-Qouneytira and suburban Damascus) and scarcely in the eastern regions (Raqqa, Der ez-Zor and Hasakeh). There are 10 centers for producing young olive trees; the annual production of the 4 million seedlings is distributed among the farmers with symbolic prices.

Syria enjoys a fortune of the best varieties of olive, some of which are destined for oil extraction, others for preparation of olive table and a third bi-functional variety; the most important of these are below in the Table.

Varieties Names	Location	Properties	Plantation Area %
Al-Zeiti	Aleppo	28-30% oil	33
Al-Sourani	Idleb	25-30% oil	27.5
Al-Dou’aybli (Al-Darmlali & Al-Tamrani)	Syrian coastal region	20-24% oil	12
Al-Khdeiri	Coastal regions	22-26% oil	10.5
Al-Jlot	Damascus, Dar’a	Relatively Large fruit	5
Al-Qaisi	Aleppo	Good for fermentation	4.5
Mohazzam abou Satel	Southern and middle regions		4.5
Al-Dan	Damascus and its suburbs	20-24% oil	1.5
Abbaadi abou Ghabra, Abou Shokeh and other varieties			1
Al-Mas’abi	Damascus, its suburbs & Dar’a	Voluminous fruit	0.5