Excavations at Ancient Greek City of Bathonea Reveal Olive Oil and Wine Workshop

An ancient Greek skyphos vino cup, deocrated successful the reddish fiugre style, dated c. 440 BC. Credit: Gary Todd via Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Archaeologists person uncovered an olive oil and vino store successful the past Greek metropolis of Bathonea (Greek: Βαθονεία), located connected the shores of Lake Küçükçekmece adjacent today’s Istanbul successful modern Turkey. The find sheds caller airy connected the city’s concern and taste beingness during antiquity.

Ancient manufacture connected the Marmara coast

Bathonea was erstwhile a thriving past Greek larboard metropolis that linked Aegean colonies to the metropolis of Byzantium done commercialized routes crossed the Propontis oversea (todays Marmara Sea).

Excavations that began successful 2009 person revealed temples, harbor structures, and workshops reflecting the city’s Greek practice and its relation successful the eastbound Mediterranean commercialized network.

Among this year’s astir important findings is simply a lion-headed chromatic spout that erstwhile directed liquids into a fermentation pool. The operation was portion of a ample olive lipid and vino accumulation complex, believed to person operated during the Late Antiquity period.

Küçükçekmece Gölü kıyılarında sürdürülen Bathonea Antik Liman Kenti kazılarında zeytinyağı ve şarap üretim atölyesi ortaya çıkarıldı. pic.twitter.com/xmn6rIAd75

— Solcu Gazete (@solcugazete60) October 16, 2025

Evidence of organized production

The excavation squad identified respective features emblematic of past workshops, including pressing platforms, postulation tanks, and retention pools utilized to process olives and grapes. The layout suggests a well-organized accumulation strategy susceptible of handling some commodities connected a sizeable scale.

The beingness of refined decorative elements, specified arsenic the lion’s caput spout, reflects the creator power of Greek and Roman architectural styles commonly seen successful workshops crossed the Mediterranean.

Artifacts uncover regular and ritual life

Dozens of amphorae—two-handled jars wide utilized successful past Greece for storing and transporting olive lipid and wine—were unearthed successful the aforesaid area. Some carnivore inscriptions that bespeak their accumulation tract and year, providing invaluable grounds of commercialized and organisation networks.

Fragments of solid goblets recovered adjacent suggest that vino was besides consumed astatine the site, implying that parts of the analyzable whitethorn person served some concern and societal functions.

The find of carnal bones wrong a excavation points to the imaginable usage of the country for ritual activities, a signifier accordant with Greek and Roman traditions linking accumulation and ceremony.

A nexus betwixt civilization and commerce

The findings astatine Bathonea uncover however Greek cultivation practices, peculiarly vino and olive oil production, shaped the economical and taste scenery of the Marmara region. The city’s concern portion reflects a continuity of techniques that dispersed from Anatolia and Mesopotamia done the Aegean and crossed the Mediterranean.

Wine, erstwhile a awesome of divine and royal privilege, evolved into a portion of regular beingness successful Greek and Roman societies, serving social, religious, and medicinal roles. The Bathonea store embodies this transformation, illustrating however past accumulation blended functionality, artistry, and ritual.

Rediscovering Bathonea’s legacy

The ongoing excavations item Bathonea’s value arsenic a halfway of Greek manufacture and culture. The expanding store analyzable demonstrates the city’s relation arsenic a crossroads of trade, craftsmanship, and faith.

Together, the discoveries connection a uncommon glimpse into the enduring Greek power that shaped beingness successful the portion astir 2 millennia ago.