Sixteen ancient olive trees in the town of Bchaaleh, Lebanon, said to be the origin of the proverbial branch.
On the edge of the small town of Bchaaleh, right about where the houses turn back into fields and orchards, is a grove of sixteen olive trees. They are unequivocally ancient, which you can tell just by the looking– gnarled roots and pitted bark belie a green flush of healthy branches, rising from trees pruned hundreds or thousands of times.
Many thousands of times, to hear the locals tell it. The olive grove's exact provenance is unclear, but folklore calls them 6000 years old, which would place their age around the domestication of the olive itself. The trees have never been dated by scientific means (and are unlikely to be, as intense core erosion makes ring counting impossible) but if they are truly 6000 years old, they would be among the oldest non-clonal trees on Earth.
Olive trees are always somewhat loaded subjects, with deep symbolic and religious connotations. An important staple crop in the ancient world, they came to represent abundance, peace, and power across many cultures, especially Greek and Roman. But these sisters are less the symbol and more the imprint; it is said that these are the trees the dove plucked the olive branch from to deliver to Noah in the flood, as the first sign of water receding.
The village of Bchaaleh is mountainous, on a rocky promontory. The grove sits at 1,300 m (4,265 ft), which is more than twice the elevation that olive trees usually grow. From it, to the west, is the sea– visible far below.
The trees still produce fruit, from which olive oil is made. If you visit (and are lucky to meet the right person on the right day) you can try some.
