The Greeks condemned to death those who kill an olive tree

The Greeks condemned to death those who kill an olive tree


Antonio Bruno *

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The deodorized olive oil from Africa or Spanish undermines the production of clear oil produced in the Salento Lecce. This "barbaric invasion" caused untold damage to the economy of the Salento peninsula in fact this 2010 olives remain on the trees or the ground. There is a real danger for the whole ecosystem of ancient olive groves, which could die and be replaced, perhaps by "intensive cultivation" of solar panels. In this paper some considerations on the insolubility of the Environment and Salento Lecce Olivo!

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Olive trees in the Salento Lecce 4000 years ago came from the sea, carried by ancient Phoenician sailors landed on the Salento peninsula.

Both local writers and visitors in Salento Lecce have always been mesmerized by the dense forest of olive trees. These majestic trees and impressive are willing to bow around the city, or grown within the walls of the enclosure.

Ferrari says that the secret of the richness of the olive trees of Salento Lecce product derived from the constant pruning and proper "to make them more fruit each year hosts them diligently to make them practical people nectar."

Greek mythology, praising the olive, the embedding of the peaks of Olympus so that the legend of Pallas Athena, which the Romans called Minerva, gave the olive tree in Athens, becoming his protector. Minerva won the Salento Lecce Otranto in fact, the olive tree is the hill of Minerva as well as in Santa Maria di Leuca was erected a temple to this goddess. I live in a country, San Cesario di Lecce, which has a beautiful jewel, which is the ducal palace in Marulli whose facade is a sculpture of the goddess Minerva, which is placed first in the group dedicated to Greek gods formed by Hercules, Neptune and Venus. Minerva give to my country, the olive tree!

Were found in the Salento Lecce some containers with traces of oil age dating of Late Bronze Age. The oil processing more than 4000 years ago was done by crushing the olives with a rock hard in a basket of woven branches. The olive tree that continues to be, that there was in past centuries, the olive tree that has always been there and this was an area rich in real estate!

The backwardness of Salento Lecce 800 is secured in the words of J. Ross: "The agricultural tools are also very primitive: a spade is unknown, and all work is done by means of a short curved hoe. The earth and stones are transported, as in Egypt, in baskets over a shoulder, and each basket holds up to a dozen piles of earth "and to suggest anything needed to use the wheelbarrow for example, instead of the basket (panaru) when in fact Ross suggests a farmer from the Salento Lecce latter replied:" Our old have always used the basket, if it was good for them will be good for us. "

The cultivation of olive trees in the Salento Lecce included plowing around ancient olive tree that had the effect of setting up a real pit to receive and to welcome the rain like an embrace, the olives that fall to the ground. Quell'aratro old fact of "two poles made from two slender branches of olive or oak, and a small wooden vomer was cut with an ax."

The olive trees that Briganti del Salento Lecce have used refuge in the hollows of trees and olive branches are the ones that were lit in order to obtain the fire on which the beans were cooked to give that as well as pleasing to all!

But you've seen the olive trees at the entrance to Lecce? The capital of Salento Lecce welcomes all those with trees transplanted in the Rondo and the beds at the city.

The Lecce in the first years of '900 at Villa Reale, where there is a garden designed by P. Porcinai, has set among the olive roads, dwellings, wells, tanks, columns, brackets of iron and stone.

The same stone that rises from fields of Salento and Surbiton, according Cosimo De Giorgi was removed "to make frantoj millstones." We all have eyes in the memory of these ancient heavy stone wheels that rotavano the crushed olives.

Rise shield against those who say the end of olive. I assure you that the reactions of people who listened to speeches that prophesy the end of the cultivation of olive trees in the Salento Lecce are really angry. We have become the "new barbarians" without suffering the consequences that reserved to the Greeks who did harm to an olive tree?

The olive tree is part of the "historic landscape" of Salento, Lecce; to be more precise the olive tree is the history of Salento, Lecce, as the Lord says Mireille, "includes the idea of historical eras, the nature of the soil, strategies defense of water resources, archaeological heritage and the housing environment. " Always the same author reminds us that "the Greeks, which were generally used to raze the lands conquered by cutting both forests, decreed the death penalty for those who had cut an olive tree public or private sector."

Yeah! more than two thousand years ago, taking the lives of those who "killed" an olive tree. Today, what should we do against those with the words, speeches and decisions, is killing the 9 million olive trees in the Salento Lecce?



* Agronomist



Bibiobrafia

Mirella Lord, the landscape of Salento under the banner of Minerva

J.A. FERRARI, Apology paradoxes of the city of Lecce, cit., P. 534

A. CASSIANO, Palazzo Ducale, in AA. Vv., S. Cesario di Lecce. History, Arts and Architecture, Galatina, Farewell, 1981, frontispiece and pp. 136,137,141,180.

R. DURING, Ceres and Bacchus with both hands, Fasano, Schena, 2000, p. 29.

J. Ross, Puglia 800. The Land of Manfred, Cavallino Lecce, Capone,

1980, pp. 136 and 35.

C. DE GIORGI, Physical description of the hydrographic and geological province of Lecce,

Lecce, Salento Studies Centre, 1960, p. 60.