MIDDLE EAST:SCIENTISTS USING radiocarbon dating have confirmed that a Judean date palm seed found in the ruins of Masada and planted three years ago is 2,000 years old - the oldest seed ever to germinate.
The seed has grown into a healthy, four-foot-tall seedling, surpassing the previous record for the oldest germinated seed - a 1,300-year-old Chinese lotus, researchers reported on Thursday in the journal Science. The little tree has been named Methuselah after the oldest person in the Hebrew Bible. It is now the only living Judean date palm and the last link to the date palm forests that once shaded and nourished the Middle Eastern region.
Dr Sarah Sallon, who directs the Louis L Borick Natural Medicine Research Center in Jerusalem, became interested in the ancient date palm as a possible source of medicines. She enlisted Dr Elaine Solowey of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura to coax the seeds which were found out of dormancy.
One sprouted. Scientists initially estimated its age at about 2,000 years, based on carbon dating of other seeds found at the site, but they had no way of directly testing the successful seed without risking its survival.
After the Methuselah seed germinated, Dr Solowey found fragments of the seed shell clinging to the roots - enough for dating.
The shell fragments initially dated to AD 295, give or take 50 years, but a small percentage of "modern" carbon incorporated as the seed germinated made it appear 250 to 300 years younger. Correcting for this, researchers reported that the seed dates from 60 BC to AD 95, similar to the other seeds from the site.
That placed the seed at Masada around the Roman siege in AD 73, when, according to the ancient historian Josephus, nearly 1,000 Jewish Zealots in the fortress committed mass suicide rather than capitulate to the Romans. They burned most of their food stores, leaving a single cache to show that they did not starve to death.
"These people were eating these dates up on the mountain and looking down at the Roman camp, knowing that they were going to die soon, and spitting out the pits," Sallon said. "Maybe here is one of those pits."
The seed probably survived for so long because of the extremely arid conditions of the Masada mesa, said Cary Fowler, seed preservation expert and executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which maintains the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.
Preliminary comparison of Methuselah's DNA to modern date palms shows a 20 per cent to 50 per cent difference from currently cultivated varieties, differences that might include lost traits for resistance to pests and diseases.
They also plan to test the tree for the medicinal properties hinted at in historical writings.
"Is it really the tree of life?" Dr Sallon asked. That question won't be answered until around 2010, when - if female - Methuselah might bear fruit. -