Dr. Sarah Sallon, of the Louis Borick Natural Medicine Research Center at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, in collaboration with botanist Dr. Elaine Solowey, of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura, have succeeded in growing a date palm seedling from seeds 2,000 years old.
The ancient seeds were found 30 years ago during archeological excavations at the mountain fortress of Masada, where Jewish rebels chose suicide over capture by Roman legions in the year 73. Radio-carbon dating shows the seeds to be some 2,000 years old, placing them during or just before the Masada revolt. These are reportedly the oldest seeds ever brought back to life.
The date palm plant, nicknamed Methusaleh after the biblical figure said to have lived for 969 years, is now about 12 inches (30 centimeters) tall. One of its leaves has been sent to the Volcani Centre, Israel's agricultural research institute, for DNA analysis in the hope that it may reveal long-lost information about the ancient tree.
The Judean date palm symbolized ancient Israel - the honey of "the land of milk and honey". Forests of date palms covered the land from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea and made Jericho famous. A date palm appears on ancient coins. The Judean date was widely praised in ancient sources, including the Bible and the Koran. It was believed to promote longevity, cure disease and infections, and act as an aphrodisiac.
Date palms now grown in Israel were imported from California from a strain originating in Iraq. Scientists hope that the old-new seedling will provide information on the medicinal properties of the fruit of the ancient Judean date tree, long considered extinct.
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For more than 3,000 years, Israel was the site for cultivating several exotic species, used in the production of Biblical incense, anointing oil, as well as perfumes and medicines.
Some of these species, such as the Boswellia trees, used to make frankincense, Commiphora species, used in the manufacture of myrrh, and the Opobalsumum tree thought to be the cource of the valuable Balm of Gilead were native to the Arabian penninsula, but were introduced into ancient Israel, according to legend, by seeds given to King Solomon by the Queen of Sheba.
Some 800 years ago, during the Crusador period, these valuable plantation sites finally disappeared, altough their memory lives on in popular folklore, while in some cases their exact sites at the Dead Sea have been uncovered in archeological excavations.
The Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Center at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem is currently trying to re-introduce these valuable species both at Kibbutz Ketura and Kibbutz Ein Gedi so that plantations will once again flourish as they did a thousand years ago.