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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, 4-foot-tall seedling, surpassing the previous record for oldest germinated seed — a 1,300-year-old Chinese lotus, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Science.
The little tree has been named Methuselah after the oldest person in the Hebrew Bible. It is the only living Judean date palm and the last link to the date- palm forests that once shaded and nourished the Middle East.
