and here
we have the judean date palm tree
this is a very special kind of tree
you know why because it was extinct
2 000 years ago but two women
decided to bring it back to life
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this area was very famous for its
dates
when the romans came here 2 000 years
ago
and conquered this area there was a huge
clash with the local jewish community
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the jews decide they're all going to
commit
mass suicide before they do they
set fire to the food stores except for
one
which they leave they kill themselves
showing a full storehouse of food
because they didn't want
to be taken by the romans as prisoners
and
live in slavery
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after 2 000 years israeli archaeologists
excavated masada they found right
by the ruins of the food storage sites
a trove of seeds
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they were kept in storage for the next
40 years
until i came and asked to have
a few of them judean dates were famous
every year they were brought as a
present
to the emperor in rome and they were
also known for their medicinal
properties as well for example they were
good against depression
they were used as aphrodisiacs
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it's a very important symbol and
icon of the land of israel but the dates
themselves
were also very important so they were
big export
they were like the the high tech of of
the ancient world if you like
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it was very difficult to get the seeds
it took a lot of time
and effort and persuasion when people
said what do you want them for i'd say
we want to try and grow them and they
just said you're mad
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this project started over 15 years ago
when she got in touch with me and asked
me to grow some plants
i saw i got some seeds from the
dig at masada
it took me quite a while to figure out
how i was going to try
to sprout these seeds it seemed to me
that the first step would be to hydrate
them slowly
so i had a bottle warmer in those days
left over
from raising my shoulders
and i put them in a bottle warmer
waited not expecting much happens
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a few weeks later one of them came up
quite fast
i did not realize the ramifications of
it
for instance when i told sarah i said
oh yeah sarah by the way one of those
seats came up and she said what
one of them came up so i said yes what
should i do with it she says
keep it you know this is incredible and
that was the story of methuselah
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people always ask me you know why did
you choose the names of these
particular trees well originally
i chose methuselah because i wanted to
give it a more
personal flavor i mean you know it could
be hmx
r3 or something but it's something
historic
and symbolic and i think it should have
a name
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he was a male so we had pollen but
you need the other side of the equation
they're really a bit like human beings
they the male pollen pollinates the
female flower and they produce
baby dates
and i then thought we'll go on and we'll
try and grow more
perhaps we'll also maybe get a female
this time
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we got another actually quite a few more
around another 30 days
and out of those 32 or 33 that elaine
planted
another uh six came up of which two
were female hannah and judith
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there's adam he started out as eve then
there was
jeremiah but jeremiah happened to be a
female
after some years we discovered so i
changed the name to hannah
and jonah well actually elaine just
called jonah jonah because she liked the
name
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when i heard that hannah was going to
give fruit of course we were all very
excited
and she was pollinated by methuselah
and we were terribly pleased when the
first dates appeared
we're the two mothers of of methuselah
and these other dates and there's
something about
about nature itself which is nature has
always been worshipped as a feminine
force there is a certain mothering
quality about growing plants you
really have to invest yourself in them
i come from medicine elaine comes from
agriculture
but somehow we meet in the middle which
is
to save nature bringing back
these plants that were destroyed
purposely i think it's a victory
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where you wipe out entire sections of
agriculture for
your own particular purposes it's
totally unjustified
we would like to have plantations of the
judean date
and that we'd like to bring it back into
cultivation
and give it to the world
you