Early Beginnings & Wild Olive Trees

Imagine the hills of Anatolia, where rugged rock meets soft sea-breeze, and silver-green leaves whisper in the sunshine. It is here that the wild olive tree, Olea europaea, still grows naturally among forests and slopes. Many scientists believe this region - ancient Anatolia or Asia Minor -was one of its earliest homes. 

From this wild ancestor, human hands learned to cultivate and care for the olive tree. Over time, people planted it, tended it, and its reach spread across the Mediterranean. 

Archaeological findings show that olive use goes back thousands of years. Evidence suggests that around 6,000 to 8,000 years ago, people in the eastern Mediterranean, including
modern-day Türkiye and Syria, were already growing and using olives. 

Inside Anatolia itself, especially along its southern coast in the region historically known as Cilicia, there are ancient settlement sites where olive cultivation and oil production played an important role in people’s lives and trade. 

Ancient Production & Trade in Anatolia

In the sun-lit hills and coastal slopes of Anatolia, the olive tree grew from quiet grove to industrial heart of an entire region. As cultivation matured, this land became more than a place for trees -it became a place of processing, trade and heritage.

In the Hellenistic and Roman eras, regions such as historic Cilicia on the southern coast built estates and production centres dedicated to olive oil. For example, the ancient city Elaiussa Sebaste in Cilicia carries a name derived from the Greek word elaion (meaning “oil”), marking its deep connection to the olive and oil industry.

Across the Mediterranean, Anatolia shifted into view as a major supplier. Olive oil from its groves found its way into trade networks that reached Greece, Italy, North Africa and beyond. The infrastructure of production advanced right alongside these trade routes: presses, storage amphorae, workshops appear in the archaeological record, signaling extraction at scale, not merely for local use but for export.

Here are six vivid examples that bring this story of production and trade to life:

  • Lyrboton Kome (near modern Antalya): A settlement roughly 2,200 years old. Excavations show more than 100 olive-oil workshops, homes, baths and churches, all centred around olive oil production. It was a major export centre in its time.
  • Klazomenai (Urla, İzmir Province): This ancient site contains one of the oldest known olive-oil production facilities in Anatolia, dating back to the 6th century BCE. A workshop with 15 carved pits and distinctive amphorae for oil travel show that exports were significant even then.
  • Bathonea (ancient harbour city near Istanbul’s Küçükçekmece Lake): A Late Antique production complex featuring pressing platforms, collection basins and a lion-head stone spout that channelled liquid into a fermentation pool, evidence of sophisticated olive-oil and wine manufacture in the region’s north.
  • Altınözü (Hatay Province, southern Anatolia): Archaeologists have identified at least 43 olive-oil mills in this district dating to the Late Roman / Early Byzantine era, a sign of long-lasting, region-wide production.
  • İskenderun (Hatay Province): A Roman-era olive-oil “factory” unearthed here (5th-6th centuries) shows that Anatolia’s industrial-scale olive-oil production was active not only in small villages but in full-fledged regional facilities.
  • Sagalassos (Southwest Anatolia, Pisidia region): Inland rather than on the coast, amphora-analysis from this site reveals that olive oil (and wine) were produced, stored and traded inland, not only in the coastal export zones, but also deeper into Anatolia’s hinterlands.

With such infrastructure and reach, Anatolia didn’t just grow olives but it also became an integral part of the ancient olive-oil economy. Every press, every amphora shipped, every grove on a sea-slope told a story of land, culture and connectivity.

Through Empires to Modern Times

In Anatolia’s landscapes, the sun soaked shores, the wind-scarred hills, the olive-lined valleys, the olive tree continued to stand, even as empires rose, flourished and faded. In the Byzantine era the groves remained, and olive-oil production held steadfast, becoming part of the region’s fabric of diet, trade and ritual. For example, long-standing traditions along the Aegean and southern Anatolian coast were documented in recent historical overviews. 

When the Ottoman Empire came to define much of Anatolia, the olive tree and its oil found new institutional forms. Olive cultivation and oil pressing became regulated, taxed and organised in imperial law. One source notes that the Ottoman lawbooks included specific provisions for olive oil production, marketing and taxation. 

In towns such as Ayvalık along the Aegean coast, the 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed thriving olive-oil factories and growing export activity. The region’s groves and presses connected with new shipping routes, modern cooperatives and international demand for “liquid gold”.   

Today, that same olive tree heritage lives on in modern-day Türkiye. Technological advances (cold-press extraction, traceability, sustainability certification) meet ancient soil and ancient trees. But the story remains the same: the groves, the harvest, the oil, each drop carries generations of know-how. As one narrative says, “Olive grows in Anatolia … for 6,000 years and dedicates peace, health and beauty to this land.” 

Deep Roots & Living Symbols

In Anatolia the olive is far more than a tree. It is a quiet witness to history, a
symbol woven into culture, belief and the very contours of everyday life. Since ancient times the oil has been used not just for cooking but for healing, ritual, illumination and ceremony. One study observes: in Anatolian culture “olive oil is not only considered a culinary ingredient but also an element with deep historical, cultural and symbolic significance.” 

The olive branch has long been a token of peace. The oil itself once fuelled lamps in temples or lit humble homes. It found its way into early medicine, into rites of purification, into the rhythm of village life. And in the kitchen? The dishes cooked in olive oil - such as the beloved Turkish “zeytinyağlılar” - are living links to that heritage. 

When you pour a spoon of Anatolian olive oil, its deep green-gold hue catching the light, you taste more than flavour. You taste the land: its limestone hills, its coastal breeze, its centuries of rain and drought. You taste people: their hands in harvest, their presses turning, their generational knowledge. And you taste time: millennia of continuity, of adaptation, of respect.

In a world where things change fast, the olive tree remains. In its silvery leaves you see the glint of civilizations past; in its roots, the anchor of landscapes that survive. And in each drop of oil, a bridge from yesterday to today, from grove to table, from story to savour.