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  • From: Betty Mayfield <bmayfield@opusnet.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Tree from 2,000-year-old seed is doing well
  • Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:26:19 -0700

Ernest,

Another story says King Herod's fortress was on Mount Masada. A detailed story from the San Francisco Chronicle at the time of the sprouting 3 years ago can be found at

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/12/MNGJND7G5T1.DTL

Betty Mayfield


At 02:34 PM 6/14/2008, you wrote:

Another date palm seed was sprouted in 1966 from a seed found at King
Herod's fortress. I read about it previously and it was on TV news
today with a picture of tree. Date palm seeds are hardy.

---- Original Message ----
From: bmn@iglou.com
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: RE: [NAFEX] Tree from 2,000-year-old seed is doing well
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:12:29 -0400

> Tree from 2,000-year-old seed is doing well
>
>By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Thu Jun 12, 3:42 PM ET
>
>WASHINGTON - Just over three years old and about four-feet tall,
>Methuselah is growing well. "It's lovely," Dr. Sarah Sallon said of
>the
>date palm, whose parents may have provided food for the besieged Jews
>at
>Masada some 2,000 years ago.
>
>The little tree was sprouted in 2005 from a seed recovered from
>Masada,
>where rebelling Jews committed suicide rather than surrender to Roman
>
>attackers.
>
>Radiocarbon dating of seed fragments clinging to its root, as well as
>
>other seeds found with it that didn't sprout, indicate they were
>about
>2,000 years old — the oldest seed known to have been sprouted and
>grown.
>
>Sallon, director of the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research
>Center
>at Hadassah Medical Organization in Israel, updates the saga of
>Methuselah in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
>
>One thing they don't know yet is whether it's a boy or girl. Date
>palms
>differ by sex, but experts can't tell the difference until the tree
>is
>six or seven years old, Sallon said.
>
>She hopes there's a chance to use it to restore the extinct Judean
>date
>palm, once prized not only for its fruit but also for medicinal uses.
>
>The researchers have had a look at the plant's DNA, however, and
>found
>it shares just over half its genes with modern date cultivars.
>
>"Part of our project is to preserve ancient knowledge of how plants
>were
>used," Sallon said in a telephone interview. "To domesticate them so
>we
>have a ready source of raw material."
>
>Her Middle Eastern Medicinal Plant Project is working to conserve and
>
>reintroduce plants to the region where they once lived.
>
>"Many species are endangered and becoming extinct. Raising the dead
>is
>very difficult, so it's better to preserve them before they become
>extinct," she said.
>
>The oldest documented seed to be grown previously was a
>1,300-year-old
>lotus, Sallon said.
>___
>
>On the Net:
>Science: http://www.sciencemag.org
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