Scientists have managed to grow an ancient seed recovered from a cave just north of Jerusalem into a long-lost species of tree — one with likely Biblical significance.
The now 10-foot-tall tree, painstakingly brought back to life over a period of 14 years, has proven to be a once presumed-extinct relative from the ‘frankincense and myrrh’ family.
Researchers now suspect that the tree, which they named ‘Sheba,’ might be the same species that produced the highly valued medicinal extract ‘tsori,’ first alluded to in the book of Genesis and later Old Testament accounts of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
‘The identity of Biblical ‘tsori’ [‘balm’ in English] has long been open to debate,’ they said. ‘There are no descriptions in Biblical sources of the tree which produced tsori.’
But ‘Sheba’ is just the latest in a series of this team’s botanical resurrections to have come out of the Holy Land, including the 2005 sprouting of an ancient date palm, nicknamed ‘Methuselah,’ from a seed dating back to the time of Christ.
‘Sheba’ (pictured above) is just the latest in a series of botanical resurrections to have come out of the Holy Land in the 21st century, including the 2005 sprouting of an ancient species of date palm, nicknamed ‘Methuselah,’ whose seed dated back to the time of Christ
The now 10-foot tall tree – painstakingly brought back to life over 14 years – was grown from an ancient seed found during an archeological dig inside a cave just north of Jerusalem. Above, two caves in Wadi Makukk in the northern Judean desert near where the seed was recovered.
Sheba’s ancient seed was first unearthed during a 1986-87 archaeological dig at Wadi el-Makkuk, a winter water channel in the Northern Judean desert whose canyons are dotted with over 374 known caves.
The 657-foot cliffs of this hard limestone and dolomite gorge have shown evidence of use by Byzantine era monks and as ‘Caves of Refuge’ during Jewish people’s wars against Rome (66–135 AD) in the decades shortly after the reported death of Jesus.
The seed, believed to be from the genus Commiphora, was discovered in ‘Cave 1’ along a 26-foot-high cliff in the lower Wadi el-Makukk region.
‘The cave,’ as Dr Sarah Sallon and her coauthors noted in their new study, ‘contained two natural holes used for burials but showed signs of theft by grave robbers.’
But despite this ‘considerable disruption,’ excavators were able to identify Roman era beads, cloth and woven ropes along with roughly a dozen other ancient seeds — primarily for fruit-bearing date palms Phoenix dactylifera and Balanitis aegyptica.
Dr Sallon of Hadassah University Medical Center, who also lead the charge to revive ‘Methuselah’ and other ancient plants from this find, suspects the seeds were left by an animal.
‘We don’t think it was brought by a human,’ as she told the Jerusalem Post. ‘The cave was a burial site and not inhabited.’
In 2009, archaeology professor Joseph Patrich of Hebrew University gave Dr Sallon and her team the seed that would become ‘Sheba’ as well as two date seeds from Cave 1 for their experiments.
That careful horticultural work, now published in the journal Communications Biology, has yielded enough mature leafy material for chemical and genetic analysis.
Dr Sallon and her team turned to both DNA sequencing and so-called ‘phylogenetic’ analysis in an effort to determine where ‘Sheba’ might fit in the lineages of the frankincense and myrrh family of plants, technically known as Burseraceae.
But unlike the famed frankincense and myrrh delivered in the New Testament as a gift celebrating the birth of Jesus, the possible Commiphora sub-species that appeared to most likely match ‘Sheba’ were not known for being especially fragrant.
‘I sent samples (leaves, bark resin, and more) to Dr Gavin Flamatti at the University of Western Australia, who is an expert on identifying fragrant compounds released by burning,’ Dr Sallon said.
‘No fragrant aromatic compounds were released,’ she explained, ‘but they did find an abundance of very medicinal substances.’
Above, an image of the ancient, 1,000-year-old seed that would grow into the plant ‘Sheba.’ Hadassah University Medical Center’s Dr Sarah Sallon, who also lead the charge to revive the ancient date palm ‘Methuselah,’ suspects the seeds were left by an animal
Above, more of the over 357 caves in Wadi Makukk in the northern Judean desert – near ‘Cave 1’ where the ancient seed was recovered
‘At first, I thought it might be the Judean Balsam,’ Dr Sallon said, ‘famous during the Greek and Roman periods because of its fragrant resin.’
But Dr Flamatti’s work and the rest of the team’s efforts pointed in another direction, towards an allegedly extinct ‘species of Commiphora once native to the region.’
All told, an international team from Europe, Australia, Israel and the US, including a biologist from the Botanical Research Institute of Texas aided in the study.
Analysis of ‘phytochemical’ compounds — those made by the plant itself to resist local fungi, bacteria and other biological threats — also helped Dr Sallon’s team narrow Sheba’s identity.
Amongst these, they found molecules called ‘pentacylic triterpenoids’ which have been detected in other Commiphora species used in ancient burial practices.
They also detected ‘high levels’ (30 percent) of squalene on Sheba’s leaves, a compound that they report has long been ‘associated with positive effects on skin physiology including emollient, antioxidant, hydration and anti-tumor activity.’
The team even found a series of so-called glycolipid compounds in ‘Sheba’s’ resin which, may related to other Commiphora resins that have shown ‘potential anti-cancer activity.’
This wave of medicinal potential is what led Dr Sallon to speculate that the plant may be the source of the Biblical ‘tsori’ as alluded to in the first book of the Bible.
Above, Sheba in its early days growing from the 1,000-year-old seed found in ‘Cave 1’
In Biblical texts, the ‘tsori’ resin was associated with the historical region once known as Gilead, which spanned east of the Jordan River and the northern end of the Dead Sea. ‘Cave 1,’ along the Wadi el-Makkuk cliffs (above), falls squarely into this same region of the Holy Land
‘Could the discovery of “Sheba,”‘ the team asks in their new paper, ‘solve some of the many controversies, contradictions and linguistic misinterpretations that have historically surrounded both Biblical “tsori” and Judean Balsam?’
Aspects of the geography where the ancient seed was found also aided in that case.
In Biblical and other ancient texts, the ‘tsori’ resin was associated with the historical region once known as Gilead, which spanned east of the Jordan River, between the Yarmuk River and the northern end of the Dead Sea.
‘Cave 1,’ along the Wadi el-Makkuk cliffs and water channels, falls squarely into this same region of the Holy Land.
This Dead Sea-Jordan Rift valley, the team noted, was ‘a mountainous, richly forested area in antiquity with a lower fertile valley (ghor) intensively cultivated throughout history.’
The Dead Sea-Jordan Rift valley is the ‘northern-most extent’ of a geographic zone that includes ‘many Commiphora species and extends through the arid/semi-arid regions of subtropical Africa Arabia, Thar Desert of India and West Pakistan,’ according to Dr Sallon and her team.
‘We believe these findings support our hypothesis, that “Sheba” […] may represent an extinct taxon once native to this region, whose resin “tsori” mentioned in Biblical texts was valuable, associated with healing but not described as fragrant,’ they concluded.
Additional research still remains to be done to confirm this hypothesis however, in part because the Sheba plant has not yet flowered — a process that will reveal still more clues via budding reproductive material that the scientists can subject to further study.
But Dr Sallon, who has devoted decades now to the hunt for long-lost plants with potential medicinal properties for people today, told reporters that she is enthusiastic about that challenge.
‘I enjoy solving mysteries,’ she said.
