Then we must look to the land where the sun rises first, a broad view that extends from that great sea of the Strait of Gibraltar, to that region which for obvious reasons is called the Levant.
We are in the cradle of Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilization: it is precisely here that the cultivation of the olive tree originated, with the consequent production and then the miraculous consumption of olive oil as we know it today.
In the 1970s, archaeological excavations brought to light the city of Ebla, and here the discovery: a royal archive of more than 30,000 inscribed tablets describing, among the various crops, the supply of cisterns and the commercial transactions of our much-prized olive oil.
We are talking about the 24th century BC and it is the first historical evidence of written sources on agriculture and food.
But how fascinating is it?
