In Ancient Greece, women who wished to conceive would spend long periods in the shade of olive trees and sleep beneath their leaves. Royal sceptres were made from its wood, and monarchs, priests and athletes were anointed with its oil. The leaves were used to make garlands and wreaths for the victors. Six thousand years ago, the Egyptians credited Isis, wife of Osiris, the supreme god of their mythology, with teaching them how to cultivate the olive tree. Pallas Athena, goddess of peace and wisdom, daughter of Zeus, was regarded by the Greeks as the mother of the tree under which Remus and Romulus were said to have been This is how the domesticated olive tree, which the Greeks wisely cultivated and which found astute and intelligent followers in the Romans—who were equally devoted to the olive tree and olive oil— came to Portugal. By the 1st century BC, the capital of Baetica – now Andalusia – was already surrounded by olive groves, but it was the Romans who brought these groves into production, adopting the Greeks’ cultivation methods. They grafted the wild olive trees, making them productive, and developed the practice of transplanting them, as attested by Virgil, author of The Georgics, when he says: ‘Olive trees demand great effort and toil. They are all transplanted, arranged in rows, and their upkeep entails great expense’. The sixteenth century was a period of growth in olive cultivation, due to increased demand from a growing population and also because of the needs arising from the In Portugael,vidence of the olive tree dates back to the Bronze Age… born, descendants of the gods and founders of Rome. The mythological Aristaeus, discovery and colonisation of the New World. The olive tree and olive oil reached Brazil, Argentina, Chile and even North America. More recently, the growing demand for olive oil – a result of its health benefits and exceptional culinary qualities – has boosted international production, leading to an increase in olive groves, not only in traditional producing countries but also in countries where olive trees were not previously part of their agricultural landscape. Examples of this include Australia, South Africa, some Asian countries such as China, and others in Latin America such as Argentina, Peru and Chile, and, more recently still, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Olive groves and olive oil The olive tree has always been associated with religious practices, myths and traditions, artistic and cultural expressions, and medicinal and culinary uses. son of Apollo and the nymph Cyrene, is credited with the invention of beekeeping and the extraction of olive oil. Whether through this legend or some more prosaic means, humankind soon learnt to make the most of the excellent energetic, biological, nutritional and organoleptic qualities of this natural oil. The Romans already possessed extensive knowledge of olive pressing techniques and the storage and preservation of olive oil. The Greeks and Arabs devoted themselves to expanding olive cultivation and refining the processes of olive oil extraction, a term derived from the Arabic ‘az-zait’, meaning ‘olive juice’. For me, this is the best definition of olive oil: ‘OLIVE JUICE’. InPortugal andtheAlentejo In Portugal, where evidence of the olive tree dates back to the Bronze Age, olive groves and olive oil have, over the centuries, experienced periods of abundance and others of scarcity. For example, by the end of the 19th century, olive groves in the 64 CULTIVAR ANALYSIS AND PROSPECTIVE STUDIES No. 35 Olive groves and olive oil
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