Follow the signs that say “Pre-Industrial Olive Mill of Gavalochori,” and you’ll find yourself at a lovingly restored olive mill from the 17th century. A very special archaeological site, it gives you a glimpse into the early olive industry in Gavalochori with detailed information in both Greek and English. The site never closes, and there is no admission fee. Just enter the green doors, and before you is the history of processing olives in Gavalochori represented by three types of olive presses—the oldest with a single millstone, a more modern one with four millstones, and the most recent a metallic one dating from the late 19th or early 20th century.
The olive-harvesting season runs from mid-September through January. Until about 1960, olives were collected in the traditional way in Gavalochori, with entire families and often friends working to harvest the olives. Every morning, people were seen heading to their fields to collect their olives, carrying on their animals sticks, tarps, and everything necessary for the day’s work. If they had small children, the villagers would bring them with them, and they would be sitting on the animals’ backs among the tarps and other tools. Small children at the olive fields were often put into cribs made by turning upside down the saddles used on the animals.
Villagers used specially crafted sticks made of bay or laurel wood to beat and rake the tree to make the olives fall onto a small tarp about the size of a bedsheet. The olives were then gathered into bags. Next, the olives were winnowed and separated from the leaves. A woman held a basket of olives at shoulder height and from there poured the olives onto a tarp on the ground. If the wind was blowing, it would blow the leaves away. If there was no wind, the women laid tarps next to each other to form one long tarp and on that, they threw the olives and separated them from the leaves themselves. At the end of the day, the bags of clean olives were hoisted onto the donkeys and other animals and brought back to the village.
In earlier days, the olives that had fallen on the soil because they were damaged by the olive fruit fly, blown down by the wind, or landed outside of the tarp during the beating of the branches were not wasted. Poor women asked permission from the owners to collect them. The arrangement was one for every three, meaning that for every three baskets the women collected, the owner took two, and the women kept one. This cleared the soil completely of olives and ensured that all of the fruit was collected.
After the olives were gathered, they were brought to olive presses or mills such as this one. The factories began working at night and processed the olives from the day’s harvest. Making oil using traditional olive presses began with washing the olives to rinse the dirt and other unwanted materials from them. Then a large, cylindrical millstone mounted by an upper milling stone was used to grind the olives (pits and all) into a pulp. The upper milling stone was turned by oxen, mules, donkeys, horses, or men pulling a wooden beam attached to the stone. The pulp was collected and placed within flexible, woven bags made of thick fibrous material such as palm fronds, hemp, or willow splints. These bags were stacked one on top of the other on the bottom side of the press. Then a stone weight was applied to release the oil from the pulp. The extracted liquid consisted of both oil and water, which was poured into a big tub so the oil could gradually come to the surface. The water was then drained off and the olive oil stored in large jars for a month or so prior to its consumption.
There used to be about 12 olive mills in Gavalochori—each neighborhood had one or more. One of them was located next to what is now the Folklore Museum, and the village has plans to restore it. In 1962, an olive mill was built in Gavalochori as a collective, and the members of the collective held a share or percentage of the mill according to the amount of their contributions. You can still see the building that housed this olive mill on your left as you walk the road between the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus and the old school. But technology surpassed this mill, and newer olive mills in other villages had better machinery and newer facilities. The Gavalochori mill was shut down, and today, no working olive mills exist in the village.
Follow the signs that say “Pre-Industrial Olive Mill of Gavalochori,” and you’ll find yourself at a lovingly restored olive mill from the 17th century. A very special archaeological site, it gives you a glimpse into the early olive industry in Gavalochori with detailed information in both Greek and English. The site never closes, and there is no admission fee. Just enter the green doors, and before you is the history of processing olives in Gavalochori represented by three types of olive presses—the oldest with a single millstone, a more modern one with four millstones, and the most recent a metallic one dating from the late 19th or early 20th century.
The olive-harvesting season runs from mid-September through January. Until about 1960, olives were collected in the traditional way in Gavalochori, with entire families and often friends working to harvest the olives. Every morning, people were seen heading to their fields to collect their olives, carrying on their animals sticks, tarps, and everything necessary for the day’s work. If they had small children, the villagers would bring them with them, and they would be sitting on the animals’ backs among the tarps and other tools. Small children at the olive fields were often put into cribs made by turning upside down the saddles used on the animals.
Villagers used specially crafted sticks made of bay or laurel wood to beat and rake the tree to make the olives fall onto a small tarp about the size of a bedsheet. The olives were then gathered into bags. Next, the olives were winnowed and separated from the leaves. A woman held a basket of olives at shoulder height and from there poured the olives onto a tarp on the ground. If the wind was blowing, it would blow the leaves away. If there was no wind, the women laid tarps next to each other to form one long tarp and on that, they threw the olives and separated them from the leaves themselves. At the end of the day, the bags of clean olives were hoisted onto the donkeys and other animals and brought back to the village.
In earlier days, the olives that had fallen on the soil because they were damaged by the olive fruit fly, blown down by the wind, or landed outside of the tarp during the beating of the branches were not wasted. Poor women asked permission from the owners to collect them. The arrangement was one for every three, meaning that for every three baskets the women collected, the owner took two, and the women kept one. This cleared the soil completely of olives and ensured that all of the fruit was collected.
After the olives were gathered, they were brought to olive presses or mills such as this one. The factories began working at night and processed the olives from the day’s harvest. Making oil using traditional olive presses began with washing the olives to rinse the dirt and other unwanted materials from them. Then a large, cylindrical millstone mounted by an upper milling stone was used to grind the olives (pits and all) into a pulp. The upper milling stone was turned by oxen, mules, donkeys, horses, or men pulling a wooden beam attached to the stone. The pulp was collected and placed within flexible, woven bags made of thick fibrous material such as palm fronds, hemp, or willow splints. These bags were stacked one on top of the other on the bottom side of the press. Then a stone weight was applied to release the oil from the pulp. The extracted liquid consisted of both oil and water, which was poured into a big tub so the oil could gradually come to the surface. The water was then drained off and the olive oil stored in large jars for a month or so prior to its consumption.
There used to be about 12 olive mills in Gavalochori—each neighborhood had one or more. One of them was located next to what is now the Folklore Museum, and the village has plans to restore it. In 1962, an olive mill was built in Gavalochori as a collective, and the members of the collective held a share or percentage of the mill according to the amount of their contributions. You can still see the building that housed this olive mill on your left as you walk the road between the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus and the old school. But technology surpassed this mill, and newer olive mills in other villages had better machinery and newer facilities. The Gavalochori mill was shut down, and today, no working olive mills exist in the village.
