Extinct Tree Resurrected from Ancient Seeds is now a Dad

[Viggen]

Ten years since the Judean Date Palm was miraculously brought back to life following the chance discovery of seeds in the 2,000-year-old ruins of Masada, the male date palm tree named Methuselah, the only one of his kind, has become a father.

 

For thousands of years, the date palm was a staple crop in the Kingdom of Judea, as it was a source of food, shelter and shade.  Thick forests of the palms towering up to 80 feet and spreading for 7 miles covered the Jordan River valley from the Sea of Galilee in the north to the shores of the Dead Sea in the south.

 

However, its value was also the source of its demise and eventual extinction.  The tree so defined the local economy that it became a prime resource for the invading Roman army to destroy.  Once the Roman Empire took control of the kingdom in 70 AD, the date palms were wiped out in an attempt to cripple the Jewish economy. They eventually succeeded and by 500 AD the once plentiful palm had completely disappeared, driven to extinction for the sake of conquest.

...via Ancient Origins

[caldrail]

Erm... If there's only one tree of that species, how did it fertilise another? There's some seriously dodgy sex going on here...

[Onasander]

Trees, the flowering kind, have a sex organ in each flower. Its not like mammal sex. So long as a pollinating creature moves between them and the fruit falls, they potentially are good, questions of genetic diversity aside. I'm sure Israel has good botanists working out just such a plan to ensure these trees do indeed reach necessary diversity in a few generations.

 

Why would the Romans try so hard to destroy an economic staple of a province it held for hundreds of years? I can understand a stupid order being put foreword in the beginning, but like, after a while some tax collector should of mentioned to the governor that the imperial policy of "Fuck You Trees" (As in the movie "The Interview" sense) just isn't wise financially for the province, or for its stewardship of the productive capacity of the soil.

Edited March 31, 2015 by Onasander

[caldrail]

It might come as a suprise but the Romans were not especially concerned with economic productivity, merely profit. After all, Domitian had ordered that half the grape vines in Italy should be destroyed because he thought people were drinking too much (though I accept the command was not fully carried out). The sort of economic control you infer was not part of Roman methodology, who basically left it to market forces and native labour, taxing the wealth as part of their social system. Varus for instance known for stripping Syria of wealth, and that meant his concern for the local economy could not have impeded him for a moment. Wealth was the marker of social status in Roman society. Since wealth in the hands of natives, who were not necesarily latinised if under Roman jurisdiction, could be used to fund unrest in an area of known instability, perhaps the governor was trying to forestall local influence?

[Onasander]

Romans were not involved in Judea very long when this command was given, so I get the whole raping the provinces of their wealth, but they seemed to of grasped the economics of trade and how to regulate and tax ports and markets, they definitely had their hands in deep.

 

The Senate wasn't in charge anymore, but it often had a regulatory if not administrative say in things too, and as you pointed out, they gained status via wealth, meaning they knew economics well enough to get rich.

 

I don't expect transparency of fiscal collection of resources, but I do think they had ideas floating around that were near utilitarian in regards to management of resources. Stoic and Peripatetic Philosophy had elements of this inherit in it, how the polis was structured from the household up. Likewise Christianity according to some theorists, especially Trinitarian Doctrine, placed hugh emphasis on economic management.

 

Just, at the same time.... the imperium was unstable, and not exactly promoted on merit, but more like Nepotism or Will to Power, so I don't expect such ideas to ever gain the assendency for long. In a few cases, like Marcus Aurelius you see glimpses.

[caldrail]

The Romans believed in a free economy. They exercised little controlover it and even when laws were passed to doso, they generally failed. What you will find are a few mentions of deals (the literate were often higher clas and thus not supposed todo business), and a whole heap of endless stiocktakes. There is evidence of contracts, both in archaeological form and mentions in sources when such things went awry, but this was not evidence of a planned economy.

 

 

 

Just, at the same time.... the imperium was unstable, and not exactly promoted on merit, but more like Nepotism or Will to Power, so I don't expect such ideas to ever gain the assendency for long. In a few cases, like Marcus Aurelius you see glimpses.

Rulers achieved power by opportunism and support, be it military, political, or regional.

[Onasander]

Ummm... sorry, there isn't really free trade when you have slave and guilds, and the beginnings of Surfdom. US came the closest in the south with mixing free trade and slavery, and you saw how that ultimately turned out. I'm still scratching my head here about some of the hijinks of having slaves on farms (orchard groves over wide geographical areas) and in industry (nail factories), as well as in river transport. It kinda worked, but not really in many trades.

 

Rome was around for a very long time, roughly two millennia. I can't say the Colonnia or the people forced to live free in the Byzantine cities to boost the civic demographics collapse were involved in free trade, or in reality how long the embargo on senatorial finances outside of traditional republican values lasted.

 

But at times in Roman history what you said could be right. But I get the distinct feeling having set prices at some ports made free trade not free trade.... but I don't know when this began and ended either.