Archaeological excavations at the ancient city of Syedra, located in the Alanya district of Antalya on Türkiye’s southern Mediterranean coast, have revealed extensive evidence of large-scale olive oil production, offering new insight into the city’s economic role in antiquity.
More than 100 olive oil workshops have been identified across the nearly 3,000-year-old settlement, suggesting that Syedra functioned as a major production hub rather than serving only local consumption. The excavations are being carried out under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s “Heritage for the Future Project,” led by associate professor Ertuğ Ergürer of Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA) on Monday, Ergürer said the findings clearly point to intensive production activity. “We have uncovered nearly 20 olive oil workshops through excavation, and identified more than 100 across the entire city. This shows that olive oil production in Syedra was carried out on a very large scale,” he said.
Syedra, which bears traces of the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Anatolian Seljuk periods, features a well-developed urban layout with structures such as a stadium, theater, baths, council building, water infrastructure systems, cisterns and colonnaded streets. Notably, olive oil workshops are frequently located within the city itself, often beneath residential buildings.
“This is unusual, as production facilities are typically found outside city walls,” Ergürer said. “Here, almost every structure has a workshop beneath it, which highlights how central olive oil production was to urban life in Syedra.”
In 2024, archaeologists uncovered a well-preserved olive oil workshop on the city’s southwestern street, with most of its architectural elements and storage vessels found in their original positions. Following documentation and conservation work, the site was partially restored to demonstrate ancient olive oil production methods for visitors.
Experts believe Syedra’s production capacity exceeded local needs. According to Ergürer, the city likely exported olive oil via nearby Mediterranean ports. “The number of workshops is far greater than what the city’s population would require, indicating that production was aimed at external markets,” he said.
