Scientists have been able to germinate a type of date palm tree that was planted in the West Bank in southern Palestine after planting seeds dating back about two thousand years ago, according to a report in the American magazine Newsweek, citing a study published by the science magazine "Advances".

Palm West Bank
The West Bank palm tree - or the palm tree of Judea as the report author Aristos Giorgio used it using the ancient Hebrew term - is one of the oldest fruit trees planted in the world and has a high symbolic value in the three monotheistic religions.

The study indicates that the palm tree was first planted in Mesopotamia and the upper Arabian Gulf about seven thousand years ago.

Newsweek reports that many of the earliest famous writers such as the Greek historian Herodotus and Pliny the Elder, the most famous Roman historian, talked about the history of the West Bank, how it was widely known for its size, sweet taste, long storage period, and medicinal properties.

Sarah Salon, who led the team of scientists who conducted the study from the Center for Natural Medicine Research in Israel, told Newsweek that "I have been working as a doctor for twenty years as I have been researching medicinal plants in the region, by which we realized that many plants became very rare or exposed." At risk of extinction. "

The West Bank Palm is one of the oldest fruit trees planted in the world (websites)

Germination of an old seed
Newsweek noted in its report that the cultivation of this type of palm trees in the region continued during the period from the fourth century to the eleventh century AD, but by the nineteenth century there was almost no effect of its cultivation due to climate change and the deterioration of infrastructure due to the waves of the invasion of the region.

In 2005, the team of scientists led by Sarah Salon managed to germinate the seed of a tree in the West Bank of about 1900 years old, which was found in a historical site near the Dead Sea, according to the expression prepared by the Newsweek report, which did not give the exact name of the place.

In their pursuit of this effort, Salon and her colleagues succeeded in germinating six 2000-year-old seeds.