Log book

After a long crossing Syusy has arrived in Imperia with a very precise objective, visiting the oil museum. On the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the oil industry of the Carli brothers, Syusy faces a historical and geographical itinerary that will allow her to know the importance of the olive in the Mediterranean area thanks to an experienced guide practically playing a home match, Lucio Carli.

The relationship between man and the olive began in upper Mesopotamia 7,000 years ago where man’s action allowed the development of bigger drupes with a greater oil yield. Inside the museum Babylonian tablets are preserved, dating from the second millennium BC, which testify to the trading of oil as a very precious commodity. In this connection, Lucio Carli points out that at that time the extract from the olive was already used in different spheres: not only as food or seasoning, but also in medicine and cosmetics. It was also burnt to produce light and heat like the wood of the plant.

Going through rooms in which lamps and prescriptions are kept, Lucio Carli takes Syusy to the room devoted to the use of oil in cosmetics. Its use is testified to by ancient Greek lekythos vases, like the one Homer tells us was given as a present to Ulysses by Nausicaa so that he would get back vigour thanks to the ointment contained in it, or by small cruets in which warriors kept the product that they sprinkled on their skin before fighting.

The importance of the olive is evident on all the shores of the Mediterranean and there are plenty of testimonies to this. At the time of Aristotle the Athenian constitution even contemplated the death penalty for anyone who eradicated an olive plant and the cultural value of oil has been handed down to the present day since we find it as a symbol in the main monotheistic religions.