Seeing nature regain its green coat and its petal colors is one of the most beautiful sights in the world. After dormancy, plant seeds prepare to emerge from the ground and participate in the great summer glow that soothes and heals us.
To use the words of American biologist Thor Hansen, each seed is a baby that sleeps with its lunch. In fact, you just need to wake it up and put it in the right conditions to see a seedling emerge.
Champions of resilience, certain seeds are capable of snoozing for a very long time before waking up. Thus, we have already succeeded in germinating arctic lupine seeds at least 10,000 years old, found in lemming burrows in the Yukon. Frozen seeds which began their long winter sleep in the Neolithic period, when our distant ancestors were just beginning to settle down.
However, the example that I want to share with you in this text is that of the date seeds found during the excavations of the Masada fortress.
Before getting to the heart of my subject, a little historical summary is in order.
The natural fortress of Masada, which has become an important Israeli tourist site, is perched atop an impressive cliff in the Judean Desert. The citadel would have been fortified around the year 35 BC. AD by King Herod the Great.
Afterwards, Masada will fall into the hands of Jewish rebels called the Sicarii. These formidable warriors, who did not have the reputation of being tender with their enemies, openly challenged Roman domination. To put down the revolt, the Roman Empire will then send a column of legionnaires led by general Lucius Flavius Silva.
When the latter arrived at the foot of the cliff in 72 AD, he quickly realized that the only winding path that could lead to the city, the Serpent Path, was guarded by the formidable and combative Sicari. To avoid needlessly risking the lives of his soldiers, Flavius Silva opted for a prolonged siege of the fortress.
The Roman troops then took months to build a gigantic ramp which allowed the expedition to scale the rock and take possession of the place. At least of what remained of it, because the historian Titus Flavius Josephus says that before the Romans entered the city, its inhabitants had chosen suicide over surrender. Legend has it that 960 people died there in this way which they considered more honorable.
This story, which includes a strong dose of legend, has taken on great symbolic importance in Jewish culture. It has even become an Israeli founding myth. The site, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
However, I will leave the details of this saga to the historians and arrive at the subject which interests the biologist that I am much more. After the capture of the city by the Roman expedition, the fortress will be inhabited by Christian monks, who, in turn, will leave it around the VIe century AD. Massada will then fall into ruin and oblivion until its discovery in 1828. Then, excavations will begin there in 1963. Archaeologists will find numerous artifacts there, but also seeds of the Judean date palm which has disappeared from the planet for a long time.
This date palm, which produced large and delicious fruits, was cultivated on the banks of the Jordan, the Dead Sea and Lake Tiberias. In 2005, two researchers, Sarah Sallon and Elaine Solowey, undertook the crazy idea of germinating these seeds.
They succeeded in growing one of these nuclei whose age estimated by carbon-14 dating was between 1800 and 2200 years. A coup that will be relayed by the scientific press across the planet.
In homage to the oldest character mentioned in the Old Testament and who lived 969 years, the seedling will be named Methuselah. Unfortunately, those who hoped to one day taste the Judas date still had to be patient. In question, the seedling emerging from the ground was a male. It was necessary to find a partner, a female foot to hope, one day, to have fertilization and subsequent production of fruit.
Fortunately, in 2020, other young palms, including females, emerged from these old seeds. So, if the trend continues, in a few years these trees will start delivering fruits to humanity. It is hoped that they will produce these extinct date varieties or at least hybrids bearing phenotypic characteristics of the famous Judas date tree. These dates are mentioned in the Bible and made Pliny the Elder salivate, but also Theophrastus, who is considered the father of modern botany.
In scientific nomenclature, the date palm is called Phoenix dactylifera. However, the phoenix is a mythological bird that is reborn from its ashes. We can therefore say that the Judean date tree is a phoenix that rose from the ashes of the fortress of Masada. As the great Charles Tisseyre would say: “plants are fascinating!” »
reference: www.lapresse.ca