Ancient Tree Grows in Israel From 1,000-Year-Old Seeds
A mysterious ancient seed that was found during archaeological excavations of a cave near Jerusalem has grown into a tree that may be the source of a medicinal balm mentioned in the Bible. After planting the seeds, Israeli researchers have found that the small spindly brown-green tree, just taller than the average human, with a smattering of pale emerald, ovular leaves, nicknamed Sheba, represents a miraculous revival of an ancient biblical plant, Forbes reports.
Sheba is named after the Queen of Sheba, the princess who, according to the Bible, visited the Israelite King Solomon bearing gifts, among them the Arabian balsam root that may have been one of the Sheba plant’s long-lost cousins.
Now the plant named after the queen is, in fact, the first of her kind to grow in hundreds of years and she may also be the secret to bringing ancient cures and medicines to modern pharmacy shelves.
Researchers think that the Sheba plant is the source of the tsori resin mentioned in the bible as a healing balm. Tsori resin was also widely used across the Roman empire for medicinal purposes, as an antidote for poisons, to embalm, and as incense.
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Resurrected from the dead
For many centuries trees like Sheba were extinct. In the 1980s ,archaeologists digging in a Judean Desert cave uncovered small seeds, just less than an inch across. The seeds were more than a thousand years old. A team of botanists planted and cultivated these seeds 14 years ago and Sheba is the result of that sowing.
The location that the seeds were discovered in provided the clue to their identity. The seeds were likely brought to the cave by cave-dwellers who wanted to exploit the tree’s medicinal qualities, meaning that these qualities were known to those living in that era. Based on that, the researchers linked Sheba with the well-known tsori.
However, for now, all that is known about Sheba’s ancestral and cultural origins is just a theory. Once Sheba grows enough to produce flowers, if she ever does, her cultivators will be able to extract testable reproductive material from the flowers, which will give them a better idea of Sheba’s history.
Record-breaking dates
Sheba isn’t the only ancient, extinct plant given a new lease on life by Israeli botanists. The Jerusalem Post shares the groundbreaking (literally) work of Dr. Elaine Solowey, a botanist at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and her friend, Dr. Sarah Sallon, the director of Louis Boric Natural Medicine Research Center at Hadassah Ein Kerem.
Despite her field of expertise being natural medicine, Sallon requested, and was given permission, to cultivate 2,000 year old date seeds uncovered in archaeological excavations in Masada.
“In 2005, we were interested in rejuvenating [the] lost flora of Eretz Yisrael,” Sallon told the Jerusalem Post. “One of the lost flora is the Judaean date. I was discussing with some scientists about their work, trying to extract DNA from ancient seeds.” Sallon asked the scientists, “If we had ancient seeds, why couldn’t we grow them.”
Sallon planted five seeds, one of which took root. She named the palm that resulted from these ancient seeds Methuselah, after the oldest living biblical character who reached the ripe age of 969 years old. Just like its namesake, the date seed that grew the Methuselah tree also broke records, earning a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest cultivated seed.
Later, The Guardian reports, Sallon’s team cultivated another six ancient date seeds, including one that was 175 years older than Methuselah. The seeds, which were nicknamed Adam, Jonah, Uriel, Boaz, Judith, and Hannah were also found in the Judean desert. during an archaeological dig.
The dates, Sallon tells The Guardian, aren’t the exact same as those eaten in Judea two millennia prior. “It won’t be the typical Judean date, because dates that were grown at that time – just like dates that are grown today – are not grown from seeds that somebody puts in the earth,” Sallon shared. “They are grown from clones from very high-producing females.”
She also touted the importance of the date palm in biblical era Judean culture. “Dates were an enormous export from Judea and they were famous,” Sallon explained. “Herod even used to present them to the emperor in Rome every year.”
Both the tsori and the ancient Judean date palm represent biblical-era species that played an important role in the lives of the ancient people in the region. These species lay dormant in desert caves for thousands of years until they were chanced upon by Israeli scientists determined to revive these ancient species in the very same sunlight, soil, and land that they had been cultivated in centuries earlier.
