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Homepage » Olive Oil Production » The Rotative Mill

• Primitive Production
• The Rotative Mill
• The Spreading of the Presses
• The Subsequent Alterations

The Appearance of the Rotative Mill

For a long time people used to crush the olives either with big stones or by foot. During the Copper era the stone rollers, which were being operated by hands or by a wooden crowbar, first appeared. Later the cylindrical crusher, who could use the animal power as well, appeared.

The introduction of the vertical millstone is very important because it can provide the use of the circular motion for the crushing machine for the first time. The oldest example of this circular motion for the present comes from Olynthos and it is dated in the 4th century BC. This mill, which is manual-operated, reminds us of Trapetum, which Katon describes in the 2nd century BC. Katon has also found some examples, one of which is in Pompeii.

This system demands the exact operation of all of the components because the millstone crushes the olives on the walls of the circular basin (mortarium). The size of each millstone must be specially arranged for their access in the sieve that the basin has in its centre.

However, later some other types, which were the evolution of Trapetum, appeared. For instance, the mill with one or two cylindrical millstones which lean towards vertical crankshaft the "Mola Olearia" and the mill with a grinder at its edge or at the depth of the basin. Both of them met great success in Roman Times (Frankel, 1986. Brun, 1986).