Milas Olive Oil: a press bed dated to 2000 BC

Very few of Türkiye's geographical indications are also registered in the European Union. Milas Olive Oil is one of them — and the historical evidence it rests on comes not from a text but from rock.

The record

The evidence in the rock

Milas and its surroundings were the heart of the Carian civilisation. The certificate lists the olive oil production remains documented in the area: press beds, press weights, lever sockets, vat remains, treading vats and vessel emplacements.

Two of them are dated:

Pilavtepe. A press bed shaped into the bedrock in the Sarıçay bed on the Milas–Bodrum road, dated to 2000 BC. Olives were being pressed here four thousand years ago.

Herakleia. A press weight found on the shore of Lake Bafa belongs to a late Roman farmhouse.

We covered the wider Mediterranean picture in the history of the olive; Milas sits at one of its oldest edges.

An unbroken chain

The certificate's strength is a record showing that production never stopped:

From before the Ottoman period Milas supplied olive oil to a wide region reaching as far as İzmir. The port of Güllük was the principal outlet for exports in every era.

The Istanbul detail is especially telling: between the 16th and 19th centuries the capital was a major consumption centre for oils of Milas origin. The name has circulated as a mark of quality for centuries.

The geography

Milas lies in the Menteşe region of north-western Muğla. It is mountainous country, bounded to the west by Lake Bafa and Mount İlbir, with the Akçay depression running to the east and narrow, deep, partly calcareous valleys defining the terrain.

The groves run in a crescent from the district centre, north-east to south-west: from Yusufça through Kırcağız, Selimiye, Bafa, Danişment, Hisarcık and Kazıklı to Güllük. The certificate simplifies the boundary — the area lying north and west of a straight line drawn between Güllük and Yusufça.

The densest planting is around Lake Bafa. We looked at the whole province in olive growing in Muğla.

In short

Milas Olive Oil is a geographical indication for oil from the Memecik cultivar, registered both in Türkiye and in the European Union. What sets its certificate apart is not a table of chemistry but a production record running four thousand years back without a break.

Source: Turkish Patent and Trademark Office, Geographical Indication Registration Certificate No 201 — Milas Zeytinyağı.