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Room 1 – The history of the olive tree
The olive tree is the first tree to be selected by man: the tree’s history and that of the Mediterranean civilisation has been wound together for more than seven thousand years.
The cultivation of the olive tree began in the east Mediterranean five thousand years ago, in this area, the production and commercialization of the olive became one of the principal economical resources. Thanks to the labour of the ancient Greeks, Phoenicians, and the Romans the olive came to be one of the principal cultivation in the Mediterranean and oil was used abundantly in daily life. The olive tree became a victim of the fall of the Roman Empire and the consequent political, economical and military crisis becoming again precious and rare, used only by a few privileged persons and during religious ceremonies. From the middle ages onwards, through the centuries, the traditional areas of cultivation strengthened and today the olive tree has come to be one of the most important features on the Mediterranean landscape.

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To relate the history of the olive tree we have chosen a few precious testimonies. A voice narrates the surprising vicissitudes and the particularly crucial events that the olive tree was submitted to during the thousands of years. Remnants of wild olive trees grown millions of years ago, remnants of the oldest domesticated trees, commercial letters dealing with quantities of oil consumed almost five thousand years ago, antique cruets and containers that take us back through time.
 

Inscribed cuneiform tablets. 
These antique inscriptions are the registered accounts of the buying and selling of oil. They document the diffusion and consumption of olive oil, the commercial transactions and the attention given by the longstanding aquirents to the quality of the product. 
 One of which is inscribed “25 sila (about 25 litres) of the highest quality olive oil, by purchase of Signore “pqu-Lisi, that signor Sin-Ashared paid on the third day of the month”.

Material: clay
Type of fabrication: hand incision
Place of origin: Babylon
Dated: 2000 B.C.
Function. A commercial inscription