[Moo] If a seed falls in a fortress, will it grow in 2,000 years

[Jeanne]

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Jun. 12, 2005. 01:00 AM	
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If a seed falls in a fortress, will it grow in 2,000 years?


STEVEN ERLANGER
THE NEW YORK TIMES

JERUSALEM-Israeli doctors and scientists have succeeded in germinating a
date seed that is nearly 2,000 years old. 

The seed, nicknamed Methuselah, was taken from an excavation at Masada, the
cliff fortress where, in AD 73, 960 Jewish zealots died by their own hand
rather than surrender to a Roman assault. The point is to find out what was
so exceptional about the original date palm of Judea, much praised in the
Bible and the Qur'an for its shade, food, beauty and medicinal qualities,
but long ago destroyed by the Crusaders. 

"The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree," says Psalm 92. "They
shall still bring forth fruit in old age. They shall be fat and
flourishing.'' 

Well, we'll see. Dr. Sarah Sallon, who runs a project on medicinal plants of
the Middle East, notes that the date-palm tree in ancient times symbolized
the tree of life. But Dr. Elaine Solowey, who germinated the seed and is
growing it in quarantine, says plants grown from ancient seeds "usually keel
over and die soon," having used most of their nutrients in remaining alive. 

The plant is now 30 centimetres tall and has produced seven leaves, one of
which was removed for DNA testing. Radiocarbon dating in Switzerland on a
snip of the seed showed it to be 1,990 years old, plus or minus 50 years. So
the date seed dates from 35 BC to AD 65, just before the famed Roman siege. 

Three date seeds were taken from Level 34 of the Masada dig. They were found
in a storeroom and are presumably from dates eaten by the defenders, Sallon
says. 

Mordechai Kislef, director of botanical archeology at Bar-Ilan University,
had some date seeds from Ehud Netzer, who excavated Masada in the 1970s. 

"They were sitting in a drawer, and when I asked for one, he said, `You're
mad,' but finally gave me three," Sallon said. "Then I gave them to Elaine,
who's an expert on arid agriculture and dates.'' 

Solowey said: "Well, I didn't have much hope that any would come up, but you
know how Sarah is.'' 

Solowey planted the date seeds at the end of January after trying to draw
them out of their deep dormancy. She first soaked the seeds in hot water to
soften the coat, then in an acid rich in hormones, then in an enzymatic
fertilizer made of seaweed and other nutrients. 

About six weeks later, she said, "I saw the earth cracked in a pot and, much
to my astonishment, one of these came up.'' 

Lotus seeds of about 1,200 years of age have been sprouted in China. After
the Nazis bombed London's Natural History Museum in World War II and a lot
of water was used to douse the fire, seeds of 500 years of age germinated. 

The date palm symbolized ancient Israel; the honey of "the land of milk and
honey" came from the date. It is praised as a tonic to increase longevity,
as a laxative, as a cure for infections and as an aphrodisiac, Sallon said.
But the dates of Judea were destroyed before the Middle Ages, and what dates
Israel grows now were imported in the 1950s and '60s from California and
originated elsewhere in the Middle East. 

Dates need to grow 30 years to reach maturity and can live as long as 200
years. But it is the female date palm that is considered holy and that bears
fruit. "Men are rather superfluous in the date industry," Sallon said. 

"Okay, I have a date plant," Solowey said. 

"If it lives, it will be years before we eat any dates. And that's if it's
female. There's a 50-50 chance. And if it's a male, it will just be a
curiosity.'' 




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