http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4986668.stm
Neanderthal yields nuclear DNA
Neanderthals died out about 29,000 years ago
The first sequences of nuclear DNA to be taken from a Neanderthal have been reported at a US science meeting.
Geneticist Svante Paabo and his team say they isolated the long segments of genetic material from a 45,000-year-old Neanderthal fossil from Croatia.
The work should reveal how closely related the Neanderthal species was to modern humans, Homo sapiens.
Details were presented at a conference at New York's Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and reported by News@Nature.
It is a significant advance on previous research that has extracted mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) specimens.
This genetic material is contained in structures that power cells; and although the information it holds is very useful, it is more limited in scope than the DNA bundled up at the cell's centre.
This nuclear DNA is what really drives an organism's biochemistry.
Divergent code
So far, Paabo and colleagues have managed to sequence around a million base-pairs, which comprises 0.03% of the Neanderthal's entire DNA "catalogue", or genome. Base-pairs are the simplest bonded chemical units which hold together the DNA double helix.
The genetic material comes from a 45,000-year-old male Neanderthal specimen found in Vindija Cave outside Zagreb, the News@Nature website reports.
DNA IN HUMAN CELLS
The double-stranded DNA molecule is held together by chemical components called bases
Adenine (A) bonds with thymine (T); cytosine (C) bonds with guanine (G)
These "letters" form the "code of life". There are estimated to be about 2.9 billion base-pairs in the human genome wound into 24 distinct bundles, or chromosomes
Written in the DNA are 20-25,000 genes, which human cells use as starting templates to make proteins. These sophisticated molecules build and maintain our bodies
Preliminary analysis shows the bundle of DNA responsible for maleness in the Neanderthal - its Y chromosome - is very different from modern human and chimpanzee Y chromosomes; more so than for the other chromosomes in the genome.
This might suggest that little interbreeding occurred between our own species and the Neanderthals.
Usually, DNA must be cloned in bacteria to produce large enough amounts to study. But Professor Paabo, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and his team have used a novel sequencing method to decode the genetic material. This involves using tiny wells to directly sequence DNA fragments in an emulsion.
However, the researcher is also working to extract and read Neanderthal DNA by the traditional method. About 75,000 base-pairs have been sequenced this way so far. They show that Neanderthals diverged from the evolutionary line that led to modern humans about 315,000 years ago.
Neanderthals lived across Europe and parts of west and central Asia from approximately 230,000 to 29,000 years ago. It is unclear what factors led to their demise, but climate change and competition from modern humans may have played a role.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/world/americas/17mummy.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
A Peruvian Woman of A.D. 450 Seems to Have Had Two Careers
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: May 17, 2006
A mummy of mystery has come to light in Peru.
Ira Block/National Geographic
A woman buried with a golden bowl on her face was wrapped in mummy cloths and buried with military items, hinting at a role as a ruler.
She was a woman who died some 1,600 years ago in the heyday of the Moche culture, well before the rise of the Incas. Her imposing tomb suggests someone of high status. Her desiccated remains are covered with red pigment and bear tattoos of patterns and mythological figures.
But the most striking aspect of the discovery, archaeologists said yesterday, is not the offerings of gold and semiprecious stones, or the elaborate wrapping of her body in fine textiles, but the other grave goods.
She was surrounded by weaving materials and needles, befitting a woman, and 2 ceremonial war clubs and 28 spear throwers — sticks that propel spears with far greater force — items never found before in the burial of a woman of the Moche (pronounced MOH-chay).
Was she a warrior princess, or perhaps a ruler? Possibly.
"She is elite, but somewhat of an enigma," said John Verano, a physical anthropologist at Tulane University, who worked with the Peruvian archaeologists who made the discovery last year.
Christopher B. Donnan of the University of California, Los Angeles, was not a member of the research team but inspected the mummy and the tomb soon after the find.
"It's among the richest female Moche burials ever found," said Dr. Donnan, an archaeologist of Peruvian culture. "The tomb combines things usually found either exclusively in male or female burials — a real mystery."
The National Geographic Society announced the discovery and is publishing details in its magazine's June issue. The excavations, more than 400 miles northwest of Lima, were supported by the Augusto N. Wiese Foundation of Peru.
The Moche culture flourished in the coastal valleys of northern Peru in the first 700 years A.D. The people were master artisans and built huge adobe pyramids. The woman's tomb was near the summit of a pyramid called Huaca Cao Viejo, a cathedral of the Moche religion.
Dr. Verano's X-ray examination revealed that the mummy was a young adult. Lying near her was the skeleton of another young woman who was apparently sacrificed by strangulation with a hemp rope, which was still around her neck. Such sacrifices were common in Andean cultures.
Radiocarbon analysis of the rope indicated that the burial occurred around A.D. 450.
"Perhaps she was a female warrior, or maybe the war clubs and spear throwers were symbols of power that were funeral gifts from men," Dr. Verano said.
1,500-Year-Old Mummy Found in Peru Pyramid
Clearly a member of royalty, the heavily tattooed Moche woman was buried with jewelry, weapons and a sacrificed slave at her feet.
By Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff Writer
May 17, 2006
Archeologists in Peru have discovered a 15-century-old mummy of a tattooed Moche woman entombed with a dazzling collection of weapons and jewelry.
The woman, clearly a member of royalty, was buried with a sacrificed teenage slave at her feet and surrounded by multiple signs of femininity, including precious jewelry, golden needles and bejeweled spindles and spindle whorls for spinning cotton.
But her burial bundle also contained gilded copper-clad war clubs and finely crafted spear throwers — objects never before seen in a Moche woman's tomb.
"Why would a woman be accompanied by weapons?" said archeologist John Verano of Tulane University, who reported the find in the June issue of National Geographic magazine. "It's somewhat of a mystery who she is."
Given the quantity and unusual preservation of the artifacts, he said, "it is going to take archeologists years of work to try to unravel the mystery."
UCLA archeologist Christopher B. Donnan, who has been working for years in the nearby Jequetepeque Valley, said many of the burial goods were identical to royal artifacts he had discovered there.
"There are implications of contact between royalty in two different valleys," he said. "We've never been able to recognize something like that before."
The find suggests that the Moche, like other South American cultures, cemented alliances between cities through intermarriage.
The mummy was discovered by Verano and Peruvian archeologists from the National Institute of Culture at a site called El Brujo, or the Wizard, on the Peruvian coast about an hour's drive north of Trujillo and more than 300 miles north of the capital, Lima. The site was occupied by a variety of groups from about 2500 BC through the Spanish colonial period, when it was abandoned.
The Moche flourished there from about AD 100 to 700. They were primarily farmers who diverted rivers into a network of irrigation canals.
A sophisticated culture, the Moche raised huge pyramids of sun-dried adobe bricks, laying their noblest dead inside. Although they had no written language, their artifacts document their lives with detailed scenes of hunting, fishing, combat, punishment, sexual encounters and elaborate ceremonies.
The mummy was discovered in a pyramid called Huaca Cao Viejo, a massive structure 100 feet tall. It was built in several phases, with successive generations enlarging it.
The mummy, which dates to about AD 450, was placed on a covered patio that was subsequently buried under about 15 feet of adobe bricks, which protected it from both the weather and looters.
The mummy bundle itself "was huge, obviously symbolic of her status," Verano said. But to remove it, the team first had to take out a skeleton lying alongside it.
"It was a well-preserved sacrifice, with a rope around its neck — the girl had been strangled," he said. Some servants were sacrificed at funerals, while others volunteered to accompany their masters into the afterlife.
It took eight men to lift the bundle from the grave and carry it to a nearby lab for inspection. The team then carefully removed the hundreds of yards of cotton cloth that encased the mummy, revealing the body of a woman who was about 5 feet tall — average for the time — and in her mid- to late 20s.
She was apparently in good health with no signs of nutritional deficiencies, although she had one tooth that would have become abscessed if she had lived longer. Her abdominal skin was wrinkled and collapsed, and bone scarring indicated that the woman had given birth at least once.
With no obvious cause of death, Verano speculated that it was "most likely some sudden infectious disease, like pneumonia or bronchitis, that wouldn't leave a mark on the skeleton."
The woman was heavily tattooed on her forearms, upper arms, the backs of her hands and on her ankles and feet. Some tattoos were of mythical animals that were also depicted on murals at the site. There are also geometric and other designs that "so far, are hard to figure out," he said.
Archeologists cannot effectively compare the tattoos to those on other corpses, Verano said, because most burials previously discovered are simply skeletons with little or no skin remaining. The few tattoos that have been observed on skin fragments from Moche women have different designs, he said.
The woman was adorned with multiple necklaces, some of gold and others of turquoise and quartz. She had multiple nose ornaments, earrings in the form of gold crosses and four tiaras or crowns, each with a different design of a fanged face.
Two tall, cylindrical headdresses and several ceramics in the tomb were clearly from Jequetepeque, Donnan said. For the headdresses, in particular, "We know of no other place where they were made and used," he said.
Because the headdresses were generally worn only by men, Donnan said, their presence suggests that a prince from Jequetepeque may have come to El Brujo to woo or wed the woman or, at the very least, to honor her after her death.
Tattooed mummy unlocks Peru's Moche culture By Ines Guzman
Wed May 17, 10:16 AM ET
HUACA CAO VIEJO, Peru (Reuters) - Archeologists probing Peru's lifeless northern desert discovered a 1,500-year-old mummy that may unlock secrets of the Moche, one of the mysterious civilizations that once ruled the Andean nation.
Baptized the Lady of Cao by researchers after it was found by a ceremonial pyramid near the Pacific Ocean, the tattooed mummy is the first female Moche leader ever discovered. It could debunk theories that the culture, known for its pottery and human sacrifices, was governed only by men.
Unveiling the mummy this week, U.S. and Peruvian archeologists said the woman, who probably died during childbirth at age 25, had religious and magical figures of spiders and snakes tattooed on her arms, much to the surprise of the investigating experts.
"The conservation of her body is exceptional. We found her buried with mercury sulfide that helped eliminate microorganisms and help the preservation," said Regulo Franco, one of the archeologists who has spent 16 years excavating the Huaca Cao Viejo pyramid with funding from a Peruvian bank.
The Lady of Cao was found with two ceremonial war clubs and 23 spear throwers -- sticks that propel spears -- puzzling archeologists who say such items have previously only been found in male Moche graves.
The woman was also buried with three other mummies, including a teenage girl found alongside her who was probably strangled as a sacrifice to the Moche leader.
Those mummies will be unwrapped over the next few months. Archeologists, backed by Peruvian bank and government funding and by the U.S.-based National Geographic Society, hope to extract DNA to see if they are the bodies of relatives.
The culture of the Moche, who constructed the largest adobe pyramid in the Americas, the Moche Sun Pyramid, developed along Peru's northern coast near what is now the country's third-largest city Trujillo. It flourished in the river valley oases from 100 A.D. to 800 A.D. The Lady of Cao dates to 450A.D.
The Moche were later conquered by the Chimus, who were known for elaborate irrigation systems and built Chan Chan, one of the world's largest adobe cities.
They in turn were conquered by the Incas, who built a civilization that stretched from the Equator to the Pacific coast of Chile and are best known for the Machu Picchu citadel in southern Peru.
Their rule came to an abrupt end in the 1530s when they were subjugated by the Spanish Conquistadors.
The Moche's Huaca Cao Viejo pyramid is covered in reliefs that suggest prisoners were sacrificed to the gods by a warrior-priest. It was abandoned for centuries.
Moche pottery has been the main way that experts had interpreted their culture. The ceramics showed the Moche had well-developed weaving techniques, but because of rainstorms every few decades, most of their textiles have been destroyed.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article548119.ece
After 500 years, sheer chance reunites head and body of Hindu statue in Paris
By John Lichfield in Paris
Published: 19 May 2006
A wife of the Hindu god Shiva, decapitated in Cambodia in the 15th century, finally has her head back, after it was discovered 500 years later on the other side of the world.
A Paris museum dedicated to Asia, the Musée Guimet, is celebrating the implausible chain of events that reunited a divided masterpiece of ninth-century Cambodian art.
The headless body of a wife of the Hindu god of destruction and renewal was found by French archaeologists near the shattered temple of Bakong, amid the celebrated Angkor ruins, in 1935. The statue has been exhibited since 1938 at the Musée Guimet in the Place d'Iéna in Paris, which has the finest collection of ancient Khmer artefacts outside Cambodia.
Last autumn, the museum held an exhibition on Vietnamese art which paid tribute in its catalogue to a retired American diplomat, John Gunther Dean. The catalogue recounted Mr Dean's efforts, as ambassador to Cambodia in the early 1970s, to rescue ancient Khmer art from the ravages of the Khmer Rouge, which was determined to expunge all record of Cambodia's past.
To thank the museum, Mr Dean, now 80, offered a gift from his own collection of ancient Khmer artefacts. Last month, the gift arrived, the sculpted head of a woman found at the Bakong temple site in 1939.
"I asked him for a Khmer head because we only had headless statues but I didn't think for a moment about a possible match," said Pierre Baptiste, the museum's curator for south-east Asian art.
"I brought the head into our [Cambodian] hall looking for a place that it could be exhibited," said M. Baptiste. "I had a sudden notion the two pieces resembled each other but then thought, 'no, things never happen that way'.
"I put the head on the statue's shoulders. It shifted a few millimetres. I heard the little click that you get when two stones fit together and the head fell perfectly into place. It was as if it had put itself together. I still get goose-bumps thinking about it."
The reformed statue, which is 4ft 10in high, was beheaded in the temple when it was destroyed in the 15th century.
A wife of the Hindu god Shiva, decapitated in Cambodia in the 15th century, finally has her head back, after it was discovered 500 years later on the other side of the world.
A Paris museum dedicated to Asia, the Musée Guimet, is celebrating the implausible chain of events that reunited a divided masterpiece of ninth-century Cambodian art.
The headless body of a wife of the Hindu god of destruction and renewal was found by French archaeologists near the shattered temple of Bakong, amid the celebrated Angkor ruins, in 1935. The statue has been exhibited since 1938 at the Musée Guimet in the Place d'Iéna in Paris, which has the finest collection of ancient Khmer artefacts outside Cambodia.
Last autumn, the museum held an exhibition on Vietnamese art which paid tribute in its catalogue to a retired American diplomat, John Gunther Dean. The catalogue recounted Mr Dean's efforts, as ambassador to Cambodia in the early 1970s, to rescue ancient Khmer art from the ravages of the Khmer Rouge, which was determined to expunge all record of Cambodia's past.
To thank the museum, Mr Dean, now 80, offered a gift from his own collection of ancient Khmer artefacts. Last month, the gift arrived, the sculpted head of a woman found at the Bakong temple site in 1939.
"I asked him for a Khmer head because we only had headless statues but I didn't think for a moment about a possible match," said Pierre Baptiste, the museum's curator for south-east Asian art.
"I brought the head into our [Cambodian] hall looking for a place that it could be exhibited," said M. Baptiste. "I had a sudden notion the two pieces resembled each other but then thought, 'no, things never happen that way'.
"I put the head on the statue's shoulders. It shifted a few millimetres. I heard the little click that you get when two stones fit together and the head fell perfectly into place. It was as if it had put itself together. I still get goose-bumps thinking about it."
The reformed statue, which is 4ft 10in high, was beheaded in the temple when it was destroyed in the 15th century.
http://ansa.it/main/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2006-05-16_1164259.html
Tuscany's Etruscan claim knocked
Modern Tuscans not descendants of ancient people, DNA says
(ANSA) - Rome, May 16 - The Tuscans' proud claim to be the descendants of the ancient Etruscans has taken a knock .
A DNA comparison of Etruscan skeletons and a sample of living Tuscans has thrown up only "tenuous genetic similarities", said lead researcher Guido Barbujani of Ferrara University .
"If the Tuscans were the direct descendants of the Etruscans the DNA should be the same," said Barbujani, a genetecist who coordinated the study with Stanford University in the United States .
The study, which appears in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concludes that most modern Tuscans are descended from a non-Etruscan people .
However, it leaves a ray of hope for the Tuscans, who often boast about the heritage that makes them different from other Italians .
"It could be that the skeletons from which we extracted the DNA belonged to an elite group that did not spread demographically," Barbujani said .
The Etruscans are believed to have formed the first advanced civilisation in Italy, based in an area called Etruria, corresponding mainly to present-day Tuscany and northern Lazio .
At the height of their power at around 500 BC - when Rome itself was subjugated - they spread to the foothills of the Alps and southward close to Naples .
Modern knowledge of their civilisation is based largely on archaeological finds, as much of their language has yet to be deciphered .
For many people the Etruscans have a romantic, mysterious aura and there is a raft of web sites devoted to them .
They are a particular favourite among New Age fans .
© Copyright ANSA. All rights reserved 2006-05-16 14:1
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/4995232.stm
Rampart find excites historians
The fort would have had impressive multiple defences, experts said
A dig near Malmesbury town walls has uncovered a substantial stone-fronted defensive rampart and a deep ditch which could date to the Iron Age.
Archaeologists believe the prehistoric hill fort would have had impressive multiple defences rising above the valley of the River Avon.
English Heritage said the results were very exciting and showed how important the town's defences were.
The work was said to bring a new dimension to the story of Malmesbury.
A project spokesman said it was the first time that the area outside of the line of defences has been examined archaeologically.
The finds add to discoveries recorded during the previous investigation carried out during November 2005 during restoration work on the walls, that revealed new evidence about the nature of the town's defences.
When the collapsing stone of the wall was removed, substantial clay deposits almost 3m (10ft) high were found. Archaeologists identified these as the upper rampart of the Iron Age hill fort on which Malmesbury was later built.
It is believed the whole of the Eastgate Bastion is an artificially constructed fortified gate (barbican) built to extend the area of the former hill fort and to provide substantial and impressive stone-built defences.
Investigations revealed evidence of a further rampart against the outer face of the lower levels of the town wall.
This consisted of burnt material including a large quantity of slag.
Archaeologists consider that this burnt material is probably Late Saxon and may date from the 8th or 9th Centuries AD.
If confirmed, it would add support to Malmesbury's claim to be the oldest borough in England.
http://www.24dash.com/content/news/viewNews.php?navID=7&newsID=5869
Spectacular brooch find may 'unlock secrets of Hadrian's Wall'
Publisher: Jon Land
Published: 17/05/2006 - 12:08:01 PM
Hadrian's Wall A 'spectacular' small brooch has been uncovered at a Roman fort that may reveal secrets about the men that built Hadrian's Wall.
The discovery of the legionary soldier's expensive and prestigious cloak brooch has excited archaeologists in Northumberland.
Experts have discovered that the brooch belonged to soldier Quintus Sollonius who would have been stationed at the forefront of the Roman empire 2,000 years ago.
Historians are continuing to examine the artefact and believe it could reveal more secrets behind the men who helped build Hadrian's Wall.
It was found at the Vindolanda Roman settlement, near Bardon Mill in Northumberland.
Quintus Sollonius painstakingly cut a set of small incised dots to make up his name. Next to the name was the inscription CUPI.
It is believed that those four letters refer to Cupius, the centurion in command of the soldiers sent by the Second Legion Augusta to help build the wall in AD122.
The brooch, which is just under 2in in diameter, incorporates the figure of Mars, the Roman god of war, wearing body armour and sandals, standing alongside two wide shields.
These shields could mean Quintus Sollonius was a veteran of campaigns against the Dacians in what is now Romania conducted by the emperor Hadrian's predecessor Trajan.
Three chains dangling below each hold an ivy or maple leaf.
The name Sollonius indicates Quintus came from Gaul, or modern France.
The centurion Cupius - an unusual name - is known from a Second Legion Augusta inscription at Caerleon in Wales.
Quintus Sollonius and Cupius were part of a detachment of legionary soldiers sent to Northumberland to assist in the early stages of the building of the 74-mile long wall.
Vindolanda director of excavations Robin Birley said: "It is a fantastic find because nothing like this has ever been seen before.
"It is further proof that there were legionnaires in Northumberland at the time of the building of Hadrian's Wall."
Mr Birley said the brooch was a very impressive object and showed that Quintus Sollonius was a very senior soldier - probably a non-commissioned officer with at least 20 years' experience.
"It is a very expensive object and he would have been very annoyed to have lost the brooch, which fastened the cloak at the shoulder," Mr Birley said.
"But it is quite big and flashy and difficult to lose, so one suspects that perhaps it was stolen."
Lindsay Allason-Jones, an expert in Roman history at Newcastle University, questioned whether the artefact was a brooch.
"I have not seen anything like this before," she said.
"I am not even sure it is a brooch and it may some sort of decoration for a horse.
"There does not appear to be a catch plate but this may have fallen off, which may explain how it was lost in the first place.
"However, I have never seen anything like this in the region before and because it has someone's name on, it is a very important find."
Copyright Press Association 2006.
http://www.oxfordmail.net/display.var.760390.0.archaeologist_flummoxed_by_roman_burial_site.php
Archaeologist 'flummoxed' by Roman burial site
Oxford archaeologists have discovered a large and significant Roman burial ground on the site of a gravel quarry.
Stunned experts had hoped to find a small farmstead at the site near Fairford, Gloucestershire, but instead discovered more than 100 graves.
Dr Alex Smith, of Oxford Archaeology, who is leading the excavation of the site, said it was a "very significant" discovery.
continued...
The burial ground is divided into two, with separate sections for adults and children a common practice in late Roman times.
Dr Smith said: "We stripped the top soil off about three weeks ago, expecting to find outlying bits of a Roman farm.
"Instead, we found 100 graves, which completely flummoxed us we certainly weren't expecting that."
He said the site believed to date back 1,700 years was one of the biggest in the region and was exciting because of its sheer volume.
Dr Smith said: "The farmhouse we think is on the site is not big enough to justify that amount of graves. It's the sort of size you would associate with a town.
"Our working hypothesis is that this was a communal burial site for all the outlying farms in the region."
The excavations at the site will continue until August.
9:36am Monday 15th May 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4994276.stm
Oldest altarpiece back in abbey
Visitors can view the altarpiece at the abbey's museum
The oldest surviving medieval altarpiece in the UK has been returned to its home at Westminster Abbey after months of restoration work.
The altarpiece, known as the Westminster Retable, was commissioned by King Henry III in 1270 just after the abbey was built.
But the 11ft-by-3ft (3.33m by 97cm) piece went missing for 400 years and at one point was being used as a cupboard.
The newly restored Retable will now be the centrepiece of the Abbey's museum.
'Superb example'
"We are absolutely delighted that the Retable is back home where everyone can enjoy this superb example of European panel painting," said the abbey's Canon Jane Hedges.
The Retable is regarded as one of the finest pieces of Gothic art surviving in Europe.
It is regarded as one of the finest pieces of Gothic art in Europe
The central compartment contains three ornate arches flanked by columns and topped by gables and turrets, which imitate the portals of a church.
An abbey spokesman said: "It's been really neglected over the centuries.
"In the 18th Century, it was even used as the top of a cupboard. It's been quite badly neglected and we decided to save it from further damage."
He said some of the ornate panelling and ornamental work had been badly damaged, with one panel painted over in the 18th Century when the Retable's value was not known.
The restored Retable will now go on display to the public free of charge in the abbey's museum in the cloisters.
http://israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=97582
2,000-Year-Old Judean Date Seed Growing Successfully
11:03 Feb 06, '06 / 8 Shevat 5766
By Ezra HaLevi
A 2,000-year-old date seed planted last Tu B’Shvat has sprouted and is over a foot tall. Being grown at Kibbutz Ketura in the Arava, it is the oldest seed to ever produce a viable young sapling.
The Judean date seed was found, together with a large number of other seeds, during archaeological excavations carried out close to Massada near the southern end of the Dead Sea. Massada was the last Jewish stronghold following the Roman destruction of the Holy Temple over 1,930 years ago. The age of the seeds was determined using carbon dating, but has a margin of error of 50 years – placing them either right before or right after the Massada revolt.
The seeds sat in storage for thirty years until Elain Solowey of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies was asked to attempt to cultivate three of them. Solowey spoke with Israel National Radio's Yishai Fleisher and Alex Traiman about reviving the ancient date palm.
Solowey, who raised the plant, has grown over 100 rare and almost extinct species of plants. Together with Hadassah Hospital’s Natural Medicine Center, she seeks to use the plants listed in ancient remedies to seek effective uses for modern medical conditions. The Judean date has been credited with helping fight cancer, malaria and toothaches. Solowey was skeptical about the chances of success at first, but gave it a try. “I treated it in warm water and used growth hormones and an enzymatic fertilizer extracted from seaweed in order to supplement the food normally present in a seed,” she said.
As this year’s Tu B’Shvat (the Jewish new year for trees, the 15th of the Jewish month of Shvat) approaches, the young tree that sprouted from one of the three seeds now has five leaves (one was removed for scientific testing) and is 14 inches tall. Solowey has named it Metushelah (Methuselah), after the 969-year-old grandfather of Noah, the oldest human being ever.
Solowey said that although the plant’s leaves were pale at first, the young tree now looks “perfectly normal.”
The Judean palms once grew throughout the Jordan Valley, from Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) to the Dead Sea. Those from Jericho, at the northern end of the Dead Sea, were of particularly notable quality. Though dates are still grown widely in the Jordan Valley, the trees come mostly from California.
The Judean date palm trees are referred to in Psalm 92 (“The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree…”). The tree was also depicted on the ancient Jewish shekel and now appears on the modern Israeli 10-shekel coin.
It is too early to tell, but if the tree is female, it is supposed to bear fruit by 2010, after which it can be propagated to revive the Judean date palm species altogether. “It is a long road to our being able to eat the Judean date once again,” Solowey said, “but there is the possibility of restoring the date to the modern world.”
Thursday 18 May 2006 12:58
Department for Culture, Media And Sport (National)
CULTURE MINISTER DAVID LAMMY ACTS TO PROTECT THE IONA II AND ROYAL ANNE GALLEY WRECK SITES
Culture Minister David Lammy has today announced measures to ensure the continued protection of two significant wreck sites: Iona II located to the east of Lundy Island, Devon, and the Royal Anne Galley situated at the Stag Rocks off Lizard Point, Cornwall. Both sites are currently protected under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973.
Iona II, which was made of iron and powered by steam, was the first ship under 150 years old to be protected when the wreck site was designated in 1989. This merchant vessel was acquired to allegedly run guns and supplies for the Confederate Forces in the American Civil War. The Iona II was lost on its first trans-Atlantic voyage, only a year after it was built in 1863. The Royal Anne Galley was a 5th rate galley which sank in 1721, twelve years after it was manufactured. The Royal Navy built only six such galleys, and the Royal Anne was described as the finest ever constructed at her launch.
The wreck of the Iona II was designated in 1990. Recent archaeological investigations have shown that a substantial proportion of the northern area of the known site lies beyond the designated area and is presently unprotected. The Royal Anne Galley wreck was identified in 1992 and designated a year later. Archaeological exploration taking place in 2005 revealed a new cluster of wreck material outside the designated zone.
Therefore both these sites are being re-designated to ensure their continued protection.
Culture Minister, David Lammy said:
"The Royal Anne Galley and Iona II wreck sites are vastly different yet both essential to our maritime heritage. I am pleased that these two Orders will help to continue the protection of both."
Notes to Editors
1. The Secretary of State has power under the Protection of Wrecks Act
1973 to designate wreck sites which she is satisfied ought to be protected from unauthorised interference on account of their archaeological, historical or artistic importance. Before making a designation order, the Secretary of State is required to consult with appropriate persons (unless she is satisfied that the order should be made as a matter of immediate urgency). Once designated, it is a criminal offence for a person to interfere with the site except under the authority of a licence.
2. Archaeological investigations undertook in June 2005 discovered that a small cluster of 18th century wreck material, located adjacent to the Quadrant Rock, may represent part of the Royal Anne assemblage. The relationship between the two sites is such that designation of this material should be considered. Extending the Royal Anne Galley restricted area will afford protection to the Quadrant site. Therefore the Advisory Committee on Historic Wreck Sites recommended that the restricted area around the site be increased from 100m to 200m.
3. Archaeological investigations carried out in May 2005 on the Iona II wreck site have shown that the centre of the current designated circle lies too far to the south and east. Therefore a substantial proportion of the northern area of the known site is presently unprotected. The Advisory Committee on Historic Wreck Sites has recommended that the centre of the designated area is moved to a position west of the wreck site. This approach will allow the whole of the known site to be protected, without including the MV Robert, a popular recreational dive site, within the designated area.
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Client ref 072/06
GNN ref 133091P