TWO THOUSAND YEARS

 Photo by Ellen Fontana from the FB page Ancient Forests and Champion Trees.

If they had olives in Middle Earth there might have been a gnarled old ent. I mean when I first saw the picture I immediatly thought of Treebeard. Estimated age on this gnarled old olive tree? Two thousand years. Two thousand years and still producing olives every year. The entry didn't give the town this tree is close to, but it is in the region of Puglia. Publis a a long narrow region that forms the heel of boot that if Italy. I looked at some shots and that region has some serious rocks and cliffs. Sometimes being out in the boonies has its advantages. Real estate that is hard to move armies on may not see as many battles. 

Cliffside town in the Puglia region. Love the colors of the water. Too bad the beach isn't all that big but it looks very, very popular. And notice how the houses are built right to edge of the cliffs.

Although in many areas where the olive is grown the trees are often not destroyed even if the neighboring farms and villages are. With the vine and barley the olive was the foundation of life in the Mediterranean. Wine, bread and the olive for food and oil. Oil for light. Oil for cooking. Oil to trade for what the rocky soil with hot dry summers couldn't grow.

Two thousand years. Augustus, the invasions of the so called Barbarians, wars back and forth over the centuries. Too bad that tree can't talk. I suspect it has some great stories to tell.