The museum exhibits the olive culture from antiquity to date. The focus is on the varied economic, usage and symbolic aspects of olive and olive oil in Greece. It is the only Museum that documents the progress of the olive oil production technology in Greece from prehistoric times to the 20th century. In the Museum’s semi-outdoor facilities, pupils produce oil using replicas of ancient Greek and Byzantine machinery, in the context of educational programs. Watch a short presentation here (in greek).
How old is the word ‘Elia’ (Olive)?
The glyph of the Museum of the Olive and Greek Olive Oil is based on the ideogram of the olive tree in Linear B, aiming to emphasise the unbroken link between the olive and the Hellenic civilisation, since its birth. The earliest written evidence of the name of the olive in Greek are as old as the oldest (to date) deciphered Greek script: they are dated to the 14th - 13th century BC and originate from the archives of the Mycenaean palaces of Knossos and Pylos, where archaeologists discovered a large number of clay tablets inscribed with Linear B script. Frequent references to the olive tree, the olive and olive oil are contained in the records. These words are quoted in ideograms and syllabograms: Ideograms