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The Judean date palm is a date palm (''Phoenix dactylifera'') grown in Judea. It is not clear whether there was ever a single distinct Judean cultivar, but dates grown in the region have had distinctive reputations for thousands of years, and the date palm was anciently regarded as a symbol of the region and its fertility. Cultivation of dates in the region almost disappeared after the fourteenth century CE from a combination of climate change and infrastructure decay but has been revived in modern times. In 2005, a preserved 2,000-year-old seed sprouted.〔("An extinct Biblical plant returns to life" ) at ''Israel Today''.〕 It is the oldest verified human-assisted germination of a seed (the claim in 2012 of a 32,000-year-old arctic flower involved fruit tissue rather than a seed). The palm, named Methuselah (not to be confused with a bristlecone pine tree of the same name), was about 1.5 m (5 ft) tall in June 2008.〔("Researchers confirm age of "Methuselah" tree" ) at Reuters〕 , it is reported at 2.5 m (8 ft) high, having been transplanted from pot to earth. By May of 2015, the palm was 3.0 metres tall and was producing pollen.〔http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/date-palm-grown-2000-year-old-seed-dad.html〕 == History == The date palm was considered a staple in the Judean Desert, as it was a source of food, shelter and shade for thousands of years, and became a recognized symbol of the Kingdom of Judea. It grew around the Dead Sea in the south, to the Sea of Galilee and Lake Hula regions in the north. The tree and its fruit caused Jericho to become a major population center and are praised in the Hebrew Bible possibly several times indirectly, such as in Psalm 92 ("The righteous himself will blossom forth as a palm tree does."), or date cluster mentioned in Song of Solomon 5:11; 7:7-8 (''Heb'': tal·tal·lim′; san·sin·nim′). In ancient times, date palms were used for their supposed medicinal properties to cure many diseases and infections, promoting longevity and acting as a mild aphrodisiac. Modern studies have been done in an attempt to confirm their medicinal value. Its likeness was engraved on shekalim, the ancient Hebrew unit of currency. According to historical sources, the taste of them was something splendid. Pliny the Elder, a Roman naturalist of the 1st century CE, wrote that Jericho's dates were known for their succulence and sweetness, though he distinguished a considerable variety of them and discussed several different varieties by name. Even in the fifth century BCE, Herodotus noted that the greatest importance of the Judean dates was that they were drier and less perishable than those from Egypt and thus suitable for storage and export, which is still an important distinction today.〔 When the Romans invaded ancient Judea, thick forests of date palms up to high and wide covered the Jordan River valley from the Sea of Galilee in the north to the shores of the Dead Sea in the south. The tree so defined the local economy that Emperor Vespasian celebrated the conquest by minting the "Judaea Capta", a special bronze coin that showed the Jewish state as a weeping woman beneath a date palm. The Qur'an describes how Maryam (the Islamic parallel of Mary (mother of Jesus)) was advised to eat dates to ease her labor pains;〔19:23-26〕 presumably, this would have been a Judean date. It is sometimes claimed that date growing as a commercial fruit export stopped at the end of 70 CE, when the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans. However, study of contemporary sources indicates that the date industry continued in Judea throughout the Roman period and that, indeed, the Roman Imperial treasury collected a good deal of the profits. Asaph Goor in his 21-page article ''History of the Date through the Ages in the Holy Land'' never mentions any such Roman devastation of the date palms, but rather cites numerous contemporary accounts attesting to the continuing extent of date cultivation through the Roman period. Goor only detects a decline in date cultivation through the period of Arab rule and especially during the Crusades, when he notes that the devastation of the region was particularly hard on the palm plantations. However, despite this, extensive cultivation persisted in Jericho and Zoara, until the agrarian economy collapsed around the 14th century. Goor attributes this final decline to a change in the climate, and quotes several later travelers to the area as to the rarity of date palms, including Pierre Belon, who in 1553 scoffed at the idea that the region could have ever produced the bounty of dates reported in ancient sources. A date palm is also featured on the ten-shekel coin of the New Israeli Shekel. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Judean date palm」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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