Hellenistic-Roman Wine and Olive Oil Presses from the Knidian Territorium

This article is a comparative assessment of the wine and oil workshop installations documented in the course of a field-survey carried out in the Knidian territorium, as compared to similar examples from the Eastern Mediterranean, with a special emphasis on press beds.In situ findings, which are related to workshops located in the archaeological sites of Burgaz (Palaia Knidos) and Yağtaşı-Devtaşı, as well as finds collected during further field work, have led us to reassess our knowledge of the Knidian wine and oil extraction technologies. It seems that the most common technology used in the Hellenistic period workshops is that of the lever and weight presses. The eleven Knidian press beds which have been inventoried are of two standard types, with specific features each. In concordance with the examples repertoried in Cilicia and Caria, the larger size of the Knidian press beds was probably due to the necessity of satisfying the needs of a regional rather than domestic market.The majority of the repertoried installations are to be found on the Datça plain which contains the most fertile arable lands of the whole Knidian territorium. Yet, we need to obtain more information concerning the agricultural technology used in sub-regions which, assumedly, were submitted to different environmental conditions. In fact, the results of our surveys provide only limited knowledge concerning the wine and oil production of the region and subsequent field surveys in sub-regions of the Knidian territory where, in antiquity, the arable lands were terraced, are needed to be carried out in order to reach more substantial conclusions.