Olive History

Olives history origin dates back to 1200 years B.C caring researchers face great difficulty in specifying the location and the date of the beginning of planting olive.

Also, they were found in the pharaoh tombs in Egypt dating back to more than 1500 years B.C. and there are undeniable proofs of their existence, in the same period of time, in the Libyan Oases and on the coasts of the Aegean Sea in Turkey and Greece.

History registers that the Phoenicians spread the olive plant as of the 16-th century B.C., through the Greek islands; the spread continued gaining utmost importance under the rule of Saulon in the 14-th century B.C.
Egypt has cultivated 125.000 Feddans that exceeds 15 million olives tree.

An estimated production of 450.000 ton of olives 
Starting from the 11-th century B.C. (that is in the year 1030 B.C.) olive entered Spain, for the first time, by means of the Phoenicians, the masters of the sea at that time. In the 6-th century B.C. olive moved to several of Mediterranean coasts through Libyan and Tunisian coasts and the Romans helped in spreading it in the Mediterranean basin, considering it as a handy weapon used as a factor in the settlement of the inhabitants. On the other hand, Arab Muslims played an important role in spreading and developing this plant by transporting various brands of olive to Mediterranean coasts of Europe; especially, Spain, as a consequence, the Spanish words for ‘olive’ (aceituna) and ‘olive oil’ (aceite) are borrowed from their Arabic counterparts in that period.

Later, olive was taken to America together with the Spanish conquistadors, and as of the year 1560 A.D. it began to appear in Mexico and Peru, from there to California, Chili and Argentina. Olive continued its spreading in modern times reaching to South Africa, Australia, Japan and China.

Olive trees grows mainly in the desert road, Fayom area, Ismaelia, Siwa and Areesh

The olives cultivation areas in Egypt

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