The Invention Of The First Oil-press, (580 B.C) Options

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THE INVENTION OF THE FIRST PRESS FOR OIL
(580 B.C)


The olive and its product, the olive oil, it is literary identified with Greece and the Greek civilizations that have thrived such as the Minoan, Mycenean, Classic, Byzantine and Modern Greek. By the excavation’s aspect they have founded storage spaces (large jars) for olive oil that are dated back to 3000B.C.

However the olive oil comes from the compression of the olive, so raise the query of how were the primitive, at first, mechanisms that produced it. The answer is much more difficult to be given because those initial mechanisms haven’t preserved due to the destructive of their materials. There are no clues about so old dating. An initial method of oil production was the pressing of a bag, similar to the way that Egyptians press the grapes. Another method was the pressing with the use of a crowbar in combination with the use of weights (ex. stones). The last one is the oldest one as far as we know and a similar machine is discovered by Fouke in 1879 at Thirasia, at the position of Orichia Alafouzou, it is dated back to prehistoric Greece. It is the oldest oil-press that had ever found and the only representation we have is in an ancient Greek embossed of 6th B.C century, which is in the British Museum of England.

We assume that had also used the millstone, although in that way the production would be very slow. However we know about four methods of oil production: the millstone (ελαιόμυλος), the whirling mill (περιστρεφόμενος μύλος), the “wooden-shoes and bin" system (σύστημα “ξυλοπάπουτσα και κάδος”) which operation is similar to that of the wine-press, and last but not least the “boxer” (πυγμάχος) which was used by Romans mainly.

Those mechanisms were results of the mechanic evolution which lantent in the Classical Period. During the Hellenistic Period, mostly from Heron’s the Alexandrea time this evolution speeded up. Heron dealt with and described many of those machines, the most significant of all was a mechanism that operated with a worm-screw and it was characterized by Pliniow as an important Greek invention. The system of the pressing with the use of a crowbar was described in every detail by the Katona the Elder and its first depiction dated back to 580 B.C.




[SOURCE]Kenneth D. White “Greek and Roman Technology”[/SOURCE]

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