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(1) Mipanas — white circle: this mill; black circle: the other mill |
aceitero outside village | aceitero inside village |
The ground plan is rectangular. The most striking feature visible from the outside is the enormous difference in the height of the walls. The wall at the back is about two times as high as the front wall (2, 3). This high back wall is a necessary prerequisite for the older mills which had to accommodate a huge prensa de palanca. We can see the same situation in the mills of Abizanda and Castilsabás which is one of the very few cases where the main beam of the press is preserved and in good shape. I wish I could say the same about Coscojuela de Sobrarbe which is the nearest spot with the same type of installation.
Inside, there is only one huge space without any divisions. Next to the entrance at the right is a rectangular container which served as a temporary storage for the olives to be processed (4, 6). At the opposite wall and in the center of the room several smaller, round containers can be seen (5, pilas). They served to catch and decant in order to obtain pure olive oil without water. You'll find almost the same constellation in Abizanda.
The space where the olives were crushed is situated at the left side of the entrance (6, 9).
In some mills the axle carried a funel (tolva) which provided a continuous flow of olives (e.g. the other aceitero of Mipanas, or Troncedo). A scraper guided the paste towards a pit from where it could be collected. The whole contraption made it possible to work without interruptions.
Sometimes a much smaller type of press was put in place (e.g. the mill of Sieste). Pressure was built up by turning a wooden screw.
Reasons enough to move from the old system for which the mill originally was built to the cast iron press still present (6, 8).
aceitero outside village | aceitero inside village |