...During excavations at the site of
Herod the Great's palace in Israel in the early 1960's, archeologists unearthed a small stockpile of seeds stowed in a clay jar dating back 2,000 years. For the next four decades, the ancient seeds were kept in a drawer at Tel Aviv's Bar-Ilan University. But then, in 2005, botanical researcher Elaine Solowey
decided to plant one and see what, if anything, would sprout.
"I assumed the food in the seed would be no good after all that time. How could it be?"
said Solowey. She was soon proven wrong.
Amazingly, the multi-millennial seed did indeed sprout -- producing a sapling no one had seen in centuries,
becoming the oldest known tree seed to germinate...
