The Egyptian olive (Olea europaea subsp. europaea) in the later first millennium BC: origins and history using the morphometric analysis of olive stones.

Newton, Claire ; Terral, Jean-Frederic ; Ivorra, Sarah 等

Introduction

Olives grow only in a typical Mediterranean climate (Durand & Flahault 1886; Baldy 1990) and remain today a staple food in the Mediterranean basin. The pickled fruit is used as food, and the oil extracted from its fleshy pulp has culinary uses, but is also used for cosmetics, lubricants, and as a source of light. In the Graeco-Roman civilisation, olive oil and wine were closely associated, because of similarities in their transformation processes and their importance in the economy, including daily life but also trade, religious rites and art. The olive tree has been of significant cultural importance in that region since prehistoric times, and still has symbolic and religious significance today.

Egypt is divided climatically into two provinces: hyperarid and arid. The Mediterranean coast belongs to the latter, with mild winters, hot summers and an annual rainfall ranging from 20 to 200mm (Zahran & Willis 1992: 8), and in its flora, this coast has distinct Mediterranean affinities (Zahran & Willis 1992: xiii). However, the climate is unsuitable for dry cultivation of the olive tree and Egypt lies outside the ecological range of the wild olive, Olea europaea subsp. oleaster (Zohary & Hopf 2000: map 14). The olive must therefore have been introduced from elsewhere, as is endorsed by etymology: its Egyptian name is borrowed from a Semitic language (Meeks 1993). Today, olives are cultivated on a small scale all over the country, and on a larger scale in a few restricted areas (Figure 1). In all cases, their cultivation requires irrigation.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The date of the beginning of oleiculture in Egypt is subject to debate (Serpico & White 2000: 398-9). Although there is evidence for the consumption of olives and possibly of olive oil at least since the New Kingdom (c. 1550-1070 BC), the products may have been imported. In neighbouring Levant, olive use and probably cultivation, if not domestication, are attested much earlier, during the Early Bronze Age (c. 3300-2200 BC) (Liphschitz et al. 1991; Zohary & Hopf 2000: 149). Its cultivation could have been introduced from the Levant to Crete and Greece during the Early Bronze Age, then to southern Italy (Brun 2003: 128). The spread of oleiculture to northern Africa and Spain probably followed the Phoenician expansion (Brun 2003).

To date, the oldest olive remains found in Egypt are charred stones from Thirteenth Dynasty Memphis (Kom el-Rabi'a, c. 1802-1640 BC) (Murray 2000: 610) and from the late Second Intermediate period Avaris in the Nile delta (Tell el-Dab'a, Thanheiser 2004, in press). They probably represent imported fruit from the Eastern Mediterranean (Syro-Palestine), with which Egyptian trade was flourishing. The earliest olive wood identifications date to the New Kingdom (Asensi Amores 2003). Stones, leaves and wood are found regularly from the New Kingdom onward (De Vartavan & Asensi Amores 1997: 183-6). The leaves were used in garlands found in tombs from the New Kingdom, especially in the Theban area (Greiss 1966; Germer 1988, 1989), and the wood was used for the manufacture of coffins (Grosser et al. 1992). Finds from the workers' villages of El-Amarna (Renfrew 1985:188) and Deir el-Medina (Bell 1982:153) attest to their local consumption, although olives must have been an occasional and luxurious food item.

Eastern Mediterranean trade in olives is demonstrated by the find of thousands of olives and olive stones from a Late Bronze Age (late fourteenth century BC) shipwreck at Ulu Burun off the southern coast of Turkey, including a single deposit of more than 2500 stones in a Canaanite jar (Haldane 1993: 352). The ship, which sank during the Eighteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom, also transported terebinth resin, identified also at the Egyptian New Kingdom site of El-Amarna (Haldane 1993). Iconographic and textual evidence also point toward the cultivation of the olive tree in Egypt during the New Kingdom (Meeks 1993). The texts also indicate that the produce was delivered almost exclusively to the temples and to the royal house (Haldane 1993).

In Graeco-Roman times, the two main regions of cultivation for the olive tree would have been around Memphis, the Fayum and around Thebes (Serpico & White 2000: 401). A document dating to 255 BC gives us an interesting clue concerning the varieties cultivated in Ptolemaic times; Apollonios, owner of an estate located in the Fayum, recommends grafting of olives to his employee Zenon, in order to introduce Greek varieties to replace the Egyptian ones (P. Cairo Zen. 59184; Brun 2003: 128). Other documents from the Zenon archives mention several varieties grown in Egypt, in particular one 'from Chios' (Brun 2003:124). At the time that Pliny writes (first century AD), 15 varieties are recorded (Natural History XV: 15-7). Five of these bear large fruit suitable for pickling, including an Egyptian one. Finds of numerous olive presses at late Roman Akoris (third-fourth centuries AD), Middle Egypt, provide archaeological evidence for large-scale olive oil production at that time (Tsujimara 1995).

Finds from Ptolemaic and Roman period sites include wood (Asensi Amores 2001), and all types of remains from settlement contexts in the oases (Thanheiser 1999; Wuttmann et al. 1998). For the Roman period, olive remains are also found at sites where they could not have been grown, such as Berenike on the Red Sea coast (Cappers 1998) and praesidia (fortified stations) on the roads linking the Nile valley to the Red Sea ports (this study; Tengberg in prep).

In spite of its social and economic importance, the history of olive cultivation in the eastern Mediterranean, and in Egypt in particular, is not known in any detail. Where and when were the olives introduced and adapted for cultivation, and which varieties were selected? The purpose of this paper is to present the results of recent research on the origins and uses of olive varieties in Egypt in later prehistory, and to examine the implications for political contact and trade. The method used is a morphometrical classification of the olive stones, both from ancient and modern contexts.

Materials and method

The stones selected for analysis come from two main sites; 'Ayn-Manawir in the south of the Kharga Oasis and Al-Zarqa/Maximianon in the Eastern Desert (Figure 1). 'Ayn-Manawir is a large site located at the southern tip of the Kharga depression in the Western desert. It comprises an elaborate complex of underground water-collecting galleries (qanats) dug into the hill and used for irrigating the slopes and plain surrounding the hill. The provenances of the olive stones are: a Persian period settlement site (MMA) dated by pottery to the fifth century BC (Thiers 2000a), a settlement site (MMS) dating to the Roman Early and Middle Imperial periods, first and second centuries AD (Thiers 2000b), and contexts related to Roman qanats, such as the orchards/gardens MQ5d (Thiers 1998) and MQ10 (Newton et al. 2006), both dated to the Roman period (Thiers 1998: 23). Two stones come from the Persian period settlement, 45 from the Roman contexts.

Al-Zarqa'/Maximianon, is a Roman praesidium (fortified station) on the road from Koptos (modern Qift) to Myos Hormos (modern Quseir) (Figure 1). The eight stones all come from the trash dump of that building. The strata in which they were found are dated archaeologically (ceramic material, coins and ostraca) to the second half of the first century AD until the last quarter of the second century AD--beginning of the third century AD (Brun & Redde 2003).

At the same time, fruit from three modern Egyptian varieties were collected in October 2003: Baladi, a cultivated variety grown in the south of the Kharga Oasis, collected in Baris, Azizi and Toffahi, two varieties grown in the Nile valley at Sahel Silim near Assiut (Figure 1). It seems that the Taffahi variety can be identified with another variety called Fayumi and grown in the Fayum. Toffahi is also known to be grown in Syria (NPGS 2003). Ninety specimens of these modern Egyptian olive stones were added to a reference collection of olive stones from various Mediterranean countries (Terral et al. 2004) that comprises 1500 stones, 330 wild and 1170 cultivated. This reference collection is kept in Montpellier, at the Centre de Bio-Archeologie et d'Ecologie.

The size of fruit and seed varies according to its agricultural status (uncultivated or cultivated) and the taxonomical status of the plant (subspecies or botanical variety), but also on a number of other ecological, anthropogenic, pathological and developmental variables. Since the whole fruit is not usually available in archaeological contexts, the method of classification used was geometrical morphometry (Bookstein 1991; Marcus et al. 1996), which consists of characterising the geometry (shape) of a structure, independently from its dimension (size). Factors connected to the developmental and environmental parameters cause morphological variability, also called phenotypic plasticity. The variation in the shape of the olive stone (the 'plasticity of its morphological character') can be explained by three main components, genetic, environmental and ontogenetic (growth and development). Stones of similar shape should have biogeographical or historical connections. The results should nevertheless be interpreted with caution, because morphology is currently considered as the expression of systems of genes that are often unknown.

Geometrical morphometric analyses were carried out on olive stones following the protocols previously developed by Terral et al. (2004). Each record involved the image capture of the stone and its reduction to a standardised outline. The outlines were compared using multivariate statistical analyses: CVA (Canonical Variate Analysis) and UPGMA (Unweighed Pair Group Method with Arithmetic mean). The archaeological specimens were then statistically clustered with the newly augmented reference collection (see above). This analysis showed up morphological relationships between ancient and modern olive populations and cultivars, and situated the archaeological stones (N = 55) with those of nearest similarity (Table 1 and Figure 2).

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Results

In comparison to the widely provenanced varieties in the reference collection, the three modern Egyptian cultivars constitute an original cluster. They are themselves morphologically related, but very dissimilar to other groups (Figure 2). Within this 'Egyptian group', the morphological similitude between Azizi and Toffahi may indicate that these two cultivars correspond in fact to a single cultivated variety. This fact constitutes an example of synonymy common in the case of cultivated varieties, and related to distinct cultivation regions.

The stones from archaeological contexts were identified as belonging either to the Egyptian group (23) or to Group III (14), composed of Israeli wild populations, one Israeli cultivar and three French cultivars (Table 1). The examples were from Persian or Roman period contexts. The remaining eighteen out of the 55 specimens could not be identified (Table 1).

Discussion

The olive stones found on both the archaeological sites, in both the Persian and the Roman periods, are related to two distinct modern groups (Table 1). One group is represented by the modern Egyptian cultivars, which themselves form a distinct group from the rest of the reference material (Figure 2). This shows that there has been continuity in the cultivation of this group of cultivars from at least the middle of the last millennium BC. In the present state of research, this could mean that these cultivars evolved and were selected in Egypt, or that the cultivar that was first introduced in Egypt has not yet entered the reference data base. Genetic data from Toffahi has shown the presence of a specific marker (ME2 mitotype) (Besnard & Berville 2000; Besnard et al. 2002) common in some cultivars such as Amygdalolia (Greece), Zaity (Syria), probably originated from an ancestral domestication centre located in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin. However, the origin of this group currently remains unknown.

The second group is related to wild types and cultivars that could have originated in the Levant region (Syro-Palestine), the region where the oldest traces of intensive olive use and perhaps cultivation have so far been found (Liphschitz et al. 1991). This implies that olives of this variety were perhaps first imported as fruit or oil into Egypt and later introduced as cultivars. Trade relations between the two regions are older than the Pharaonic period, and they have been under common rule several times during their history.

The presence of olives from both areas of origin during the Persian period raises the question of whether they were introduced at that time. Briant (1997: 89) suggests that the Persian authorities could have given fiscal incentive to Egyptian farmers to settle and dig qanats (underground water-collecting galleries) in the region, leaving them free to arrange the details of the irrigation regulations. That could also have been the case for the selection of crops to grow on the irrigated land. The choices would thus be in accordance with local constraints rather than with a distant central power. However, olive remains are still scarce for this period at 'Ayn-Manawir (fragments, 3 complete stones), although that may be due to the mode of preservation, i.e. exclusively charred. No mention is made of any olive product or of olive cultivation on the Persian period ostraca (M. Chauveau pets. comm.), and up to now no olive charcoal has been identified.

Between the Persian and Roman periods, there is evidence of occupation during the Ptolemaic period, but no olive remains were found in the few samples collected (Newton 2002). However, it is possible that the trees introduced presumably under Persian rule were cultivated until the Roman time of expansion of the local settlements. Grafts and/or fruit from elsewhere could also have re-introduced oleiculture in the oasis. In the Roman period there is textual evidence for the presence of olive groves and olive oil in the area of the two sites examined (P. Jand. 142; Wagner 1987: 296). The cultivation of olive trees is described on field borders, and in association with barley, grapevine, and date palms (P. Jand. 142; Bousquet & Redde 1994: 87-8).

Although Persian-period olive stones are scarce, the results show that two different varieties were grown at that time, and that the same two were still grown five centuries later, during the Roman period. The more abundant Roman material also shows that one or several more varieties were produced at that time, but it cannot yet be demonstrated whether they were also produced in the previous period, for lack of archaeological stones. The cultivation of the same types during the two periods may indicate, either that the same trees were cultivated again with the new agricultural expansion of the region during the Roman period, and that they could have been tended to between the two periods, or that the same types were meanwhile still being cultivated in another area, perhaps even within the Kharga oasis, from which new individuals were introduced into the region of' Ayn-Manawir.

The two identified morphotypes found at 'Ayn-Manawir were also found at Al-Zarqa'. Al-Zarqa'/Maximianon is a fortified station on a road which was used as a relay for caravans transporting goods imported through a Red Sea port to the Nile valley, and other goods from the valley to the port and settlements along the road. Olives and olive oil are mentioned in the ostraca from the Roman stations along this road, as products imported from the valley (Bulow-Jacobsen 2003: 420). The olive stones found at the site probably represent varieties grown in the Nile valley.

The two types therefore occur on either side of the valley, on a producer site and on a consumer site. If we consider that the olives were imported to Al-Zarqa' most probably from the Nile valley, it could mean that the varieties grown in Egypt during the early Roman times were the same in the valley and in the south of the Kharga oasis. The chronological and geographical origin of these morphotypes in Egypt remains to be elucidated, through the analysis of older material from the Nile valley.

Conclusion and perspectives

The results from the first geometrical morphometric analyses of modern and archaeological olive stones show, on the one hand, that the modern Egyptian cultivars are significantly distinct from the rest of the reference varieties, and on the other hand, that the cultivation of these varieties dates back at least to the middle of the last millennium BC, during the first Persian rule over Egypt. The archaeological material also reveals the cultivation of other varieties, one related to modern types probably originating from the Levant, the other(s) not yet identified. The identity of the first varieties introduced in Egypt, and the further evolution of oleiculture through Pharaonic, Classical and Islamic times, need to be assessed through the analysis of additional archaeological material from diverse periods, including the first attested remains (Middle and New Kingdom).

To be determined more precisely is the identity of the variety or varieties represented by the olive stones that could not be linked to any group from the present reference collection. For that purpose, we are still lacking reference material, from wild types growing in Syria, and from cultivars grown in Egypt as well as in neighbouring countries in the Eastern Mediterranean region (Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, Tunisia). We must therefore consider these first results as preliminary.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Michel Wuttmann, Helene Cuvigny and the Ifao for allowing the study of plant macro-remains from the sites of 'Ayn-Manawir and Al-Zarqa', and for providing the necessary equipment on the sites. Hamdi Hammam Hassan, inspector for the Supreme Council of Antiquities and 'Abd El-Ghany Mohammed Ahmed from the village of Douch, are also thanked for their collaboration in collecting the reference material. Thierry Gonon helped with the processing of the photographs from 'Ayn-Manawir. The Ifao and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs funded the archaeological missions. Michel Chauveau and Helene Cuvigny kindly provided comments and references on textual evidence for olive in the studied sites. Dimitri Meeks kindly allowed us to use his map. This work was supported by the CNRS--GDR 2474 << Morphometrie et Evolution des formes >>.

Received: 25 October 2004; Accepted: 16 February 2005; Revised: 14 July 2005

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Claire Newton * (1), Jean-Frederic Terral * (2) & Sarah Ivorra * (3)

* Centre de Bio-Archeologie et d'Ecologie (CNRS UMR 5059/EPHE), Institut de Botanique (Universite Montpellier 2), 163 rue A. Broussonnet, 34090 Montpellier, France

(1) As above and Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale (IFAO), 37 Al-Cheikh Ali Yussef Street, Qasr Al Ainy BP 11562, Cairo, Egypt (Email: cnewton@univ-montp2.fr)

(2) Email: terral@univ-montp2.fr

(3) Email: ivorra@univ-montp2.fr

Table 1. Allocation of archaeological stones to extant morphological
groups defined by UPGMA

 Archaeological
Site Cultural period context N Morphotype

AM Persian period 2 III
 Egyptian
 Roman period MMS3 11 III (n = 3)
 Egyptian (n = 5)
 unclassified (n = 3)
 MMS6 1 unclassified
 MMS19 9 III (n = 4)
 Egyptian (n = 4)
 unclassified (n = 1)
 MMS23 5 I1I (n = 2)
 Egyptian (n = 1)
 unclassified (n = 2)
 MMS47 2 III
 unclassified
 MMS51 4 Egyptian (n = 1)
 unclassified (n = 3)
 MMS61 8 III (n = 1)
 Egyptian (n = 4)
 unclassified (n = 3)
 MMS523 2 Egyptian
 unclassified
 MQ 3 Egyptian (n = 2)
 unclassified
Z Roman period 8 Egyptian (n = 4)
 III-IV-V (n = 2)
 unclassified (n = 2)

 Probability of
Site N allocation

AM 2 0.62
 0.70
 11 0.64-0.80
 0.62 [less than or equal to] p
 [less than or equal to] 0.96
 1
 9 0.62 [less than or equal to] p
 [less than or equal to] 0.74
 0.62 [less than or equal to] p
 [less than or equal to] 0.89

 5 0.71-0.85
 0.68
 2 0.72
 4 0.74
 8 0.73
 0.63 [less than or equal to] p
 [less than or equal to] 1.00
 2 0.98
 3 0.85-0.98
Z 8 0.87 [less than or equal to] p
 [less than or equal to] 1.00
 0.62-0.66