Olive Oil Production Returns to Pompeii 2,000 Years After Volcanic Eruption

Three hun­dred fifty olive trees dot­ting the arche­o­log­i­cal area of Pompeii, in south­ern Italy, are the source of the first olive oil pro­duced in the ancient city since the dis­as­trous vol­canic erup­tion entombed it in 79 C.E.

During a cer­e­mony held on the porch of the Large Palaestra, a sug­ges­tive loca­tion in the heart of the archae­o­log­i­cal site, farm­ing orga­ni­za­tions, olive grow­ers and gov­ern­ment min­is­ters tasted and cel­e­brated the Pumpaiia extra vir­gin olive oil, named after the city.

“This extra vir­gin olive oil is the fruit of a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort of our asso­ci­a­tions and the Archeological Park of Pompeii insti­tu­tions,” Nicola Di Noia, the direc­tor gen­eral of the olive oil pro­ducer asso­ci­a­tion, Unaprol, and pres­i­dent of the agri­cul­tural sup­port ser­vices of the farm­ing orga­ni­za­tion, Coldiretti, told Olive Oil Times. ​“Across the city, hun­dreds of olive trees have been restored.”

The olive trees grow across 66 hectares in the his­toric Roman city, pop­u­lat­ing the court­yards of Pompeii’s ancient houses and some green spaces.

“That is one of the chal­lenges. To har­vest the olives and take care of the trees, grow­ers need to spread around such a large sur­face,” Di Noia said.

Upon recov­ery, the olive trees were pruned accord­ing to their loca­tion, with an eye on both pro­duc­tion and land­scape needs.

“Besides the olive trees, a num­ber of local plant species used to grow in Pompeii. They have all been recov­ered as part of the restora­tion project,” Di Noia noted.

Pompeii’s olive trees include pop­u­lar Italian cul­ti­vars such as Moraiolo and Leccino, but many come from local cul­ti­vars, which are far less known.

“There are olive trees strictly linked to the region, such as Ravece, Ortice or Carpellese,” Di Noia said. ​“The Pompeii Archeological Park has always been active in research­ing ancient species with the goal to recover not only its trees but to revive the unique link [of mod­ern Pompeii] to its his­tory.”

“There are Domus, the court­yards of which have been restored, where plants from those ancient times now thrive again,” he added.

The local farm­ers and asso­ci­a­tions are respon­si­ble for prun­ing the trees and attend­ing to their needs through­out the sea­son, har­vest­ing and trans­form­ing the olives.

“All of the olive oil pro­duced by those olives becomes Pompeii’s unique extra vir­gin olive oil and is returned to the Archeological Park,” Di Noia said. ​“This ini­tia­tive is not busi­ness-ori­ented. Its mean­ing lies in pro­mot­ing the his­tor­i­cal con­nec­tion with Pompeii’s ori­gins.”

Ancient Pompeiians con­sumed plenty of olive oil, which was only par­tially pro­duced by local grow­ers. Most of the olive oil was imported from regions across the Roman Empire.

“They used it for many pur­poses, not only for con­sump­tion but also for cleans­ing or cos­met­ics, typ­i­cal of those ancient days. Think of the use of olive oil as fuel. Olive oil lamps once lit the whole of Pompeii,” Di Noia said.

The recov­ery of the olive trees comes on the heels of sim­i­lar ini­tia­tives to restore the ancient olive her­itage of other arche­o­log­i­cal parks in the coun­try.

Among the exam­ples of recov­ery projects are Palatine’s olive oil pro­duced from the trees in the Colosseum Park in Rome or olive oil pro­duced from thou­sands of trees planted at the villa of the Roman emperor Hadrian, not far from the Italian cap­i­tal.

“Those are exam­ples of recov­ery which we hope may also inspire other ini­tia­tives to com­bat the aban­don­ment of olive orchards through­out the coun­try, such as the ini­tia­tive in the Apennines,” Di Noia said.

Table olives were also pre­sented to the Italian min­is­ters on the porch of the Large Palaestra.

“Pompeii’s res­i­dents avidly con­sumed table olives,” Di Noia said. ​“There are arche­o­log­i­cal inscrip­tions that detail the use of table olives. Receipts to pro­duce them were found.”

“At the time, they pro­duced table olives only by nat­ural meth­ods, of course,” he added. ​“Even if they were not grown in Pompeii, the table olives we pre­sented at the event are the fruit of that same ancient approach. Instead, they are bit­ter nat­ural table olives, full of antiox­i­dants.”

The cel­e­bra­tion in Pompeii comes ad the Italian gov­ern­ment seeks to pro­mote its cui­sine as a can­di­date for selec­tion for UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

“The food and wine pro­duc­tion chain is part of the Italian her­itage,” Gennaro Sangiuliano, min­is­ter of Culture, said dur­ing the event. ​“Culture and food tra­di­tion is an oppor­tu­nity for socio-eco­nomic devel­op­ment.”

• Coldiretti
• Sky Italia