Scientists have revived a mysterious, 1,000-year-old seed discovered in the Judean Desert — and the tree that has grown from it could belong to a lost lineage mentioned in the Bible, they say.
It has taken researchers almost 14 years to grow a tree from the ancient seed, which archaeologists excavated from a cave in the late 1980s. Dubbed “Sheba,” the cryptic specimen now stands around 10 feet (3 meters) tall, meaning scientists can finally describe its fully-fledged characteristics.
They were also able to perform DNA, chemical and radiocarbon analyses of the tree, revealing new clues about its origins, according to a study published Sept. 10 in the journal Communications Biology.
The seed from which Sheba grew dates to between A.D. 993 and 1202, according to the study. It likely survived from a now-extinct population of trees that existed in the Southern Levant, a region comprising modern-day Israel, Palestine and Jordan, and is the first of its kind to be found there.
Remarkably, researchers say the fully-grown specimen could be the source of Biblical “tsori” — a resinous extract associated with healing in Genesis, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
“The identity of Biblical ‘tsori’ (translated in English as ‘balm’) has long been open to debate,” the researchers wrote in the study. The substance is linked with the historical region of Gilead, which sits to the east of the Jordan River between the Yarmuk River and the northern end of the Dead Sea. Now, having revived Sheba, the team thinks it has finally unraveled the mystery behind Biblical tsori.
The researchers identified Sheba as belonging to the genus Commiphora, which sits within the myrrh and frankincense family (Burseraceae) and comprises roughly 200 living plant species.
Commiphora plants are mainly found across Africa, Madagascar and the Arabian Peninsula. It remains unclear what species Sheba belongs to, because the tree has not flowered, and therefore hasn’t produced the reproductive material scientists need to carry out more detailed analyses.
