Three years ago, a team of Israeli researchers took an ancient date seed collected from one of King Herod's palaces and planted it in a small pot.
It sprouted, and Methuselah, as they dubbed the sapling, is now 1½ metres high. Radiocarbon dating shows the seed was 2,000 years old, by far the oldest ever to have germinated, the scientists report in today's edition of the journal Science. The researchers say they hope the plant will help resurrect a long-extinct species known in biblical times for the sweetness of its fruit.
"This was a very special tree, very medicinal, with huge dates," says Sarah Sallon, a medical doctor at the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center, part of the Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem.
It is also special because of where it was found. Masada, a mountaintop fortress overlooking the Dead Sea, is where Jewish forces made their last stand against Roman troops after the fall of Jerusalem in the year 70.
Built by King Herod 2,044 years ago, it was part stronghold, part pleasure palace, and it was decorated with opulent frescoes. After King Herod died, a Roman garrison was stationed there, Dr. Sallon says. A group of Jews took control of it in AD 67 and began stockpiling food.
When Jerusalem fell three years later, a group of resisters from the city fled through the desert to Masada. After a year-long siege, the Jewish men chose to die rather than be captured. They killed their wives and children before committing suicide.
"After all this, we have a date tree," Dr. Sallon says.
She pictures a boy eating a date and spitting out the pit as he watched the Roman soldiers prepare for their final assault. The remains of a boy, a man and a woman were discovered not far from where a number of seeds were collected in the early 1960s by archeologists excavating the fortress.
They stored the seeds at room temperature for nearly four decades. Dr. Sallon, who investigates the medicinal properties of ancient plants, was determined to see whether she could get at least one of them to grow.
Ancient texts describe how the dates were used to treat tuberculosis, heart problems, worms and infections.
They didn't just plop the pit into a pot. Elaine Solowey, with the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Israel, bathed three seeds in fertilizer and enzyme-rich solutions before they were planted.
"Two of them came up," Dr. Sallon says.
She and her colleagues weren't sure exactly how old the seed was when they planted it. But when the sapling was repotted after a year and a half, they found seed fragments clinging to the roots and sent them to Switzerland to be dated.
Markus Elgi at the University of Zurich's Radiocarbon Laboratory analyzed the fragments and two other seeds that had been found at the same spot, but hadn't grown. He found they were 2,000 years old, give or take 50 years.
The plant appears normal, although some of its early leaves had white patches on them. Dr. Sallon won't know whether it will bear fruit until about 2010.
The date palm was domesticated more than 5,000 years ago, and the Judean Dead Sea region was famous for its high-quality fruit.
When the Romans crushed the revolt, many Jews went into exile or into slavery in Rome. The Judean date palm died out, probably from a lack of attention, she says. For centuries, all that remained of the historic tree were images on ancient coins and mosaics. She is hoping to reintroduce it in Israel, where date species that now grow have been imported from other countries.
