Cultural and artistic expansion.

The olive oil, used as aromatic oil and as a lotion, was the principal product for the care of the body, therefore very appreciated. The cult of the dead and of the gods was inconceivable without the olive oil, since it was an important element of the religious ceremonies. The olive oil was Crete's main exporting product. There are known documents of Ramses III (the papyrus Harris I) where he donated, the best olive oil extracted from Heliopolys's olive groves, to the sun's god, Ra, intended to fuel the shrine's lamps. Several lamps, especially of alabaster, found in the pharaoh's tombs, proved the olive oil use in the Egyptian's temples. The Egyptian cult of the dead included, besides the ointment with the olive oil, an ornament with necklaces, where there were small olive branches. (Egyptian Museum, Cairo).The scenes portrayed in every detail in the Parthenon's frieze (British Museum, London) show the honorable awards to the winners of the Panatheanic Games, that took place in Athens to honor the goddess protector of the city, Athena. The winners of the Games received as an award, the olive oil extracted from an olive grove consecrated to the goddess Athena. This was a very recurring scene of the Greek sculpture and vase painting. Similar representations are also found in the Greek's cult of the dead. The olive oil was a constant element in the Greek's cult of the dead, and accompanied the deceased in its journey to the other world, in valuable vases called Ekyithoi. It was a custom, on those vases, to portray scenes of the deceased's life, and as a ritual to be placed near its tomb. In the National Museum of Taranto, Italy, among the gold objects displayed, is conserved an olive branch necklace with gold leafs. It's a funerary wardrobe of a lady of the IV century b. C. Thanks to the custom of Greeks and Romans to bury the dead, it was preserved a lot of pottery, that reflects the incredible cult to which, already at that time, the aristocratic ladies were committed: the body's care and the beauty, demonstrated from the consumption of different aromatic oils. It was reached a point even to affirm that existed an aromatic oil for each body part of a lady. In the Herculaneum's murals (National Museum of Naples) or in the Vetti di Pompeii's house (before of the 79 a. C.) is portrayed the production of perfumes.
Every step is represented: the squeezing, the heating, the aromatization, even the sales. In the byzantine's way, the scene appears also in a mural of the Grotto's church of S. Vito Vecchio of the XIII century a. C. (Pomarici Santomasi Museum of Gravina, Italy). The use of the olives as decorations is documented in some bowls belonging to a luxurious pottery discovered in the archaeological excavation of Menandro's house in Pompeii, and remained buried under the Vesuvius's eruption of the 24 August 79 a. C.
The 118 pieces of this treasure are in the Louvre, and in the National Museum of Naples. Certainly the first description of an oil lamp, the Menorah, is found in the Exodus (25,31-40). God instructed Mosè to make it for the Temple, following His exact instructions, and to use the purest olive oil to lit it. In the 70 a. C. Titus brought the candelabrum to Rome. The scene is represented in the Titus's Arch in the Roman Forum. It's also represented in the mosaics of several Jewish synagogues, like the one of Tiberiades- Hammat of the IV century, near the Genezareth lake, and in the one of Bet Alfa, in the Jordanian Valley, of the VI century. Certainly the lamp permanently lit in front of Athena's statue in the Acropolis in Athens, wasn't of minor historic value. According to Pausanias it was made of gold by the sculptor Callimachus toward the end of the V century a. C. Once a year was filled of olive oil. For some time coexisted in the Jewish religion two kinds of lamp: the Chanukah at eight flames by eight days, and the Sabbath, also at eight flames, which was lit at the Sabbath's eve (Schweinfurt Collection, end of the XVIII century). In the early Christians period, it was often utilized in churches gold and silver oils candelabrum, richly decorated, which were hanged with chains. Until the invention on the gas lamp in the XIX century, the oil lamps were utilized in the whole Europe. Of all the Paradise's trees, the fig tree is considered the tree of the truth, but the tree of life is the olive tree.