Known since ancient times in Messinia the cultivation of the olive tree we discover the her fingerprints being in Nestor’s Palace. As we stand across the street from the Throne Room, on the right, there is a series of five rooms of different
dimensions. The northwesternmost contained twelve jars for oil and numerous smaller vessels of other shapes. Many of them had written decoration and it seems that this warehouse was where the best quality oil was kept. Signs of the The deciphered Linear B scriptures that were deciphered confirm that olive oil was important product for the region.
A fully organized production, with olive oil pressing and marketing, already existed in the the (first) Venetian era from the 15th century. He seems to describe it in a few lines of Professor Anthony C. Moberatos in 1914, in his work on the Methoni and Koroni during the Venetian rule.
Methoni and Koroni have held the scepter of production for centuries and this is confirmed in the late 17th century by the Turkish traveller Evlija Çelebi, who who, passing by the area, was impressed by the olive trees: “Methoni produces the best olives in the world. I have never seen such a hard and sweet olive. This way.
send a gift to the Sultan of lemon juice, olives and olive oil in appropriate containers. They have planted olive trees everywhere.”
Subsequently, the Venetians, wishing to increase the production of olive oil, allowed the law the free vaccination of wild birds by giving titles of ownership to those who they inoculated the tree even if it was on someone else’s property.
This law was most favourable to the olive grower, setting it as a
encouragement from the Venetians, led the inhabitants to plant trees and to the vaccination of all wild birds and in a short period of time. The traveller Skrofani who passed through Laconia in 1975 writes that “the best olive groves have planted by the Venetians. Systematic cultivation begins in the mid-18th century.”
From archival sources it is known that in 1704 the production of olive oil in Messinia was 16,139 barrels compared to the total Peloponnesian production of 16,139 barrels
was 19,159 barrels. Of these 16,139 barrels, the amounts were distributed as follows. production of Koroni was 8,000, of Methoni 3,012, of Navarino 2,007, of Kyparissia 1.820 and Zarnata 1.300 barrels.
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