Ancient Olive Presses and Oil Production in Cyrenaica (North-East Libya) by Ahmed M. A. Buzaian (review)

Abstract

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Reviewed by:

• Ancient Olive Presses and Oil Production in Cyrenaica (North-East Libya) by Ahmed M. A. Buzaian
• Conor Trainor

Ahmed M. A. Buzaian. Ancient Olive Presses and Oil Production in Cyrenaica (North-East Libya). Open Access Monograph 3. London: British Institute for Libyan and North African Studies, 2022. Pp. 176. $55.00. ISBN 9781915808004. Open access: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/63736.

Publishers are invited to submit new books to be reviewed to Professor Lawrence Kowerski, Classics Program, Hunter College, 695 Park Ave., New York, NY 10065; email: lawrence.kowerski@hunter.cuny.edu.

Ancient Olive Presses and Oil Production in Cyrenaica sets out to challenge the widely held interpretation that this region of north-east Libya (half of the Roman province of Crete and Cyrenaica) experienced a significant economic decline from the third century AD onward. The interpretation of economic decline has been established through ancient historical accounts relating to social unrest and a major regional earthquake. Ahmed Buzaian challenges this narrative by arguing convincingly that archaeological evidence can provide a different perspective.

This book is an impressive piece of work which has grown out of the PhD research of Buzaian at the University of Leicester. The archaeological data presented in the book largely comes from Buzaian’s survey of a 30,000km² area. The survey was focused primarily on identifying and recording the remains of pressing and milling facilities and equipment across a region that roughly spans from modern day Benghazi to Tobruk, and into the elevated hinterlands to the south in Libya. During the survey, Buzaian identified 104 production-related sites, with over 250 examples of pressing and milling installations. The scope and scale of this study transforms our previous understanding of this region, and the wealth of data presented raises some important questions around the economic relationships between urban centers and rural hinterlands.

There is not scope in this review to provide an in-depth summary, so I will highlight a few key areas in which this book makes a particularly substantial contribution to scholarship. Most obviously, it redefines the economic topography of Cyrenaica – at least in a sectoral and material sense. The focus on oil production across this region provides extremely valuable data relating to population sustainability, economic output, and the role of wider exchange networks in establishing production trends. The study also presents a picture of regional production with reference to pressing and extraction technologies specifically. This will be significant to those studying ancient oil and/or wine production, who tend to be reliant on the same ancient written sources (e.g. Theophrastus, Columella, Pliny the Elder) to fill the gaps in the material record; however, studies such as the present one, R. Frankel’s Wine and Oil Production in Antiquity in Israel and Other Mediterranean Countries (Sheffield 1999) and E. Dodds’ Roman and Late Antique Wine Production in the Eastern Mediterranean (Archaeopress 2020) serve to highlight the regional character of production techniques, practices, and even technologies. While ancient texts are helpful, the accounts relating to production that they present us are not necessarily universally applicable. The detailed presentation of the milling and pressing elements of Cyrene in this book will be of considerable value to those working on similar topics in other Roman provinces. [End Page 451]

Buzaian also includes a consideration of amphora types and production patterns in Cyrenaica. While not directly related to oil production per se, amphoras would have been produced to facilitate the transport/export and the commodification of oil. While there are many other aspects to this study that will find wider interest, the final one that I will note here is the focus on the regional environment and population sustainability. This work pays close attention to the environmental preconditions of Cyrenaica to consider potential oil yields and the nutritional requirements of the local populations as a means for understanding surpluses and potential export yields.

The main focus of this work is the second to fourth centuries AD, but it also includes evidence from both earlier and later periods (Classical and Hellenistic, as well as Christian and early Islamic). The presentation of the book is generally excellent, and the BILNAS press should be commended...