The Egyptian olive (Olea europaea subsp ... - ResearchGate

Claire Newton, Jean-Frédéric Terral & Sarah Ivorra
the Levant to Crete and Greece during the Early Bronze Age, then to southern Italy (Brun
2003: 128). The spread of oleiculture to northern Africa and Spain probably followed the
Phoenician expansion (Brun 2003).
To date, the oldest olive remains found in Egypt are charred stones from Thirteenth
Dynasty Memphis (Kom el-Rabi’a, c . 1802-1640 BC) (Murray 2000: 610) and from the
late Second Intermediate period Avaris in the Nile delta (Tell el-Dab’a, Thanheiser 2004,
in press). They probably represent imported fruit from the Eastern Mediterranean (Syro-
Palestine), with which Egyptian trade was flourishing. The earliest olive wood identifications
date to the New Kingdom (Asensi Amorós 2003). Stones, leaves and wood are found
regularly from the New Kingdom onward (De Vartavan & Asensi Amorós 1997: 183-6).
The leaves were used in garlands found in tombs from the New Kingdom, especially in the
Theban area (Greiss 1966; Germer 1988, 1989), and the wood was used for the manufacture
of coffins (Grosser et al. 1992). Finds from the workers’ villages of El-Amarna (Renfrew
1985: 188) and Deir el-Medina (Bell 1982: 153) attest to their local consumption, although
olives must have been an occasional and luxurious food item.
Eastern Mediterranean trade in olives is demonstrated by the find of thousands of olives
and olive stones from a Late Bronze Age (late fourteenth century BC) shipwreck at Ulu Burun
off the southern coast of Turkey, including a single deposit of more than 2500 stones in a
Canaanite jar (Haldane 1993: 352). The ship, which sank during the Eighteenth Dynasty
of the New Kingdom, also transported terebinth resin, identified also at the Egyptian New
Kingdom site of El-Amarna (Haldane 1993). Iconographic and textual evidence also point
toward the cultivation of the olive tree in Egypt during the New Kingdom (Meeks 1993).
The texts also indicate that the produce was delivered almost exclusively to the temples and
to the royal house (Haldane 1993).
In Graeco-Roman times, the two main regions of cultivation for the olive tree would have
been around Memphis, the Fayum and around Thebes (Serpico & White 2000: 401). A
document dating to 255 BC gives us an interesting clue concerning the varieties cultivated
in Ptolemaic times; Apollonios, owner of an estate located in the Fayum, recommends
grafting of olives to his employee Zenon, in order to introduce Greek varieties to replace
the Egyptian ones (P. Cairo Zen. 59184; Brun 2003: 128). Other documents from the
Zenon archives mention several varieties grown in Egypt, in particular one ‘from Chios’
(Brun 2003: 124). At the time that Pliny writes (first century AD), 15 varieties are recorded
(Natural History XV: 15-7). Five of these bear large fruit suitable for pickling, including an
Egyptian one. Finds of numerous olive presses at late Roman Akoris (third-fourth centuries
AD), Middle Egypt, provide archaeological evidence for large-scale olive oil production at
that time (Tsujimara 1995).
Finds from Ptolemaic and Roman period sites include wood (Asensi Amorós 2001), and
all types of remains from settlement contexts in the oases (Thanheiser 1999; Wuttmann
et al. 1998). For the Roman period, olive remains are also found at sites where they could
not have been grown, such as Berenike on the Red Sea coast (Cappers 1998) and praesidia
(fortified stations) on the roads linking the Nile valley to the Red Sea ports (this study;
Tengberg in prep).
In spite of its social and economic importance, the history of olive cultivation in the
eastern Mediterranean, and in Egypt in particular, is not known in any detail. Where and
Method
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