Olive-oil Fabrika

In Hall 3, the visitor enters a space that still seems to hold the scent of olives and the sound of work. It is the old Fabrica, the pre-industrial olive mill, where the community once gathered to transform the fruit of the sacred tree into oil — the precious treasure of the Cretan land.

The heavy stone millstones, solid and darkened by time, show how the first crushing of the olives took place. The wooden beams, the mechanisms of the mill, and the kofinída that carried the olives to the basin reveal a rhythm of labor that demanded cooperation and strength. Nearby, the large thick-fibered bochádes of the press await the olive pulp so that the slow and painstaking squeezing can begin.

The enormous clay storage jars, lined up in a row, tell their own story: here the oil was kept, protected from light and air, until it travelled to households for cooking, preserving food, and even for life’s rituals.

As the visitor walks among the tools, the millstones, and the jars, they can easily imagine the space filled with people, conversations, and smells. The exhibition reveals, step by step, the journey of the olive: from the breaking of the fruit to the natural separation and collection of the oil. At the same time, it reflects an entire body of knowledge that sustained the Cretan economy and daily life for centuries — a knowledge passed from generation to generation, as both a blessing and a responsibility.

It is an experience that does not only show how oil was produced, but also how community itself was built around labor, cooperation, and respect for the land.