Some research claims that around 100,000 years ago, olives were used by people on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, for fuel management and probably for consumption. (1.)
Domestication of the olive plant dates from between 8,000 and 6,000 years ago, in the Eastern Mediterranean. (Levant: modern-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Israel)
The earliest lamps were simply a bowl filled with olive oil, with a wick.
The earliest evidence of olive fruit processing (olive presses) to make olive oil, dates to about 7,000 years ago, in the Jordan Valley, Israel.
Olive trees can live and bear fruit for thousands of years.
Archaeological evidence suggests that Early Bronze Age trade (from 3300 BC to 1200 BC) in edible olives and olive oil was extensive.
Domestication of the olive plant dates from between 8,000 and 6,000 years ago, in the Eastern Mediterranean. (Levant: modern-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Israel)
During an excavation, 8,000-year-old olive oil was found in ancient clay pots, in the Lower Galilee region of northern Israel.
While the oldest oil lamp was found in the cave of Lasceau, France, in a cave inhabited between 15,000 and 10,000 BC, olive oil is believed to have been first used to light lamps in the Mediterranean.
The earliest evidence of olive fruit processing (olive presses) to make olive oil, dates to about 7,000 years ago, in the Jordan Valley, Israel.
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| Israel, Jerusalem, BYU Center, A reproduction of an ancient lever based press for extracting olive oil on display |
Liberty Biblical Museum claims that olive oil lamps evolved through the Bronze Age.
The export of olive oil from Palestine to Egypt is well documented in the Bronze Age.
A 2,300-year-old olive Oil lamp, in good condition, was found on Israel's West Bank.
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| A nearly completely intact clay oil lamp from 2,300 years ago was found near a stone bath during recent conservation work at the Mount Gerizim National Park |
Since Byzantine times, olive oil was used to light lamps in temples and monasteries.
In 2021, a 2000-year-old amphora, ceramic pot, used to transport olive oil in Roman times, was found in a Swiss riverbed. The earliest surviving olive oil amphorae dates to 3,500 BC.