Unguere: To Smear with Oil

Lori KissellFLAVA

October 04, 2013

Origin

• Gift of Athena• Symbol of Attica/Athens• Never most important Attic crop and likely not

primary export

Production and Uses

Production – growing-crushing-pressing-transporting

Uses - -light-cooking-bodies-ritual

Production

• Growing:– Lower slopes of Apennines– Spain– Southern Gaul– Greece– Asiatic provinces– coastal Tripolitania and Cyrenaica– African provinces

Production

• Growing – Highly drought-resistant– Sensitive to frost– Usually crop every other year– Cuttings, ovules and grafts– Olives do not grow true to type from seeds– Table/oil varieties– Rarely mono-cultured

Production

• Growing– Combined with pastoralism– Harvested in autumn/winter– Greeks and Romans liked “white” olives for oil

Production

• Crushing– Packed in salt/saltwater first– Not edible raw– Crush first – Many devices known– Simplest – flat bed and stone roller, pestle,

wooden sandals– Best is Roman trapetum

Production

• Crushing– Don’t crush stones – add bitter taste– Luxury/quality oil removed stones first or minimal

crushing of stones– Machines existed for stone removal, questionable

effectiveness– Crushed olives moved to frails, then to presses

Production

• Pressing– Simplest and most common press = beam– Weighted with rocks, human pulling– End fixed in wall as fulcrum– Weight pulled onto crushed olives in frails,

pressing oil out

Production

• Pressing-Improvements to beam press incl. winch, lever and drum, better anchoring-Screw 1st assisted, then replaced beam-Direct screw press replaced beam 1st C. CE-Possible because of screw, screw nut 3rd C BCE--Pliny, screw extracts more, risks bitterness

Production

• Pressing– Separate oil and water– Romans ladle from top per Cato (Agr. 66) and

Columella (Rust. 12.52-8-12)– Greeks more commonly use bottom spout method– Presscake remains, used for pig food and fertilizer

Production

• Transporting– Most olives raised and consumed locally– Oil keeps better, and is traded– Luxury oils for quality, taste, added flavorings

traded like vintage wine

Production

• Transporting– Attica, Samos, Venafrum, Baetica, Cyrenaica all

famous for oil– Stored and transported in large jars (dolia/pithoi)– Sold in amphorae– 2/3 sherds in Mt. Testaccio are olive oil amphorae– Peak in trade 140-165 CE

Uses

• Light– Lamps were pottery, bronze, gold, silver, iron, lead,

ceramic– Single or multiple nozzle styles– Freestanding or suspended– Smokeless or minimal smoke

Uses

• Cooking– Roman recipes abound with olive oil– Dunk (morning) bread– Infuse with flavors – herbs? decadent?

Uses

• Bodies– Baths and strigils– Skin oils

Uses

Bodies- Perfumes

Uses• Bodies– Medicaments

Uses

Ritual-Oil from sacred trees (moriai) given as

prizes in Panathenaic Games

Uses

Ritual-Libations

Uses

• Roman wedding– Anoint couple’s new door with oil-soaked wool