8,000-Year-Old Olive Oil Residue Discovered

March 24, 2015

The earliest evidence for the use of olive oil in the country, and possibly the entire Middle East, was revealed at an antiquities site in the Lower Galilee. In 2011–2013, Dr. Ianir Milevski and Nimrod Getzov of the Israel Antiquities Authority directed an archaeological excavation at Ein Zippori in the Lower Galilee. This led to research that indicates olive oil was already being used in the country 8,000 years ago.

Getzov and Milevski methodically sampled the pottery vessels found in the excavation in order to ascertain what was stored in them and how they were used by the site’s ancient inhabitants. Together with Dr. Dvory Namdar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, they took small pieces of pottery and utilizing chemical methods for extraction and identification examined the organic remains that were absorbed in the sides of the vessel.

These tests revealed that the pottery dating to the Early Chalcolithic period contained olive oil. A comparison of the results of the extraction from the archaeological sherds with those of modern, one-year-old oil, showed a strong resemblance between the two, indicating a particularly high level of preservation of the ancient material, which had survived close to its original composition for almost 8,000 years.  

Milevski and Getzov said, “It seems that olive oil was already a part of the diet and might also have been used for lighting. Although it is impossible to say for sure, this might be an olive species that was domesticated and joined grain and legumes—the other kinds of field crops that we know were grown then. Those crops are known from at least two thousand years prior to the settlement at Ein Zippori. With the adoption of olive oil, the basic Mediterranean diet was complete. From ancient times to the present, the Mediterranean economy has been based on high quality olive oil, grain and must [a form of grape juice], the three crops frequently mentioned in the Bible.”

Source: Excerpt of press release by Israel Antiquities Authority

Photo Credit: Ashernet/iaa