The Boudicca Parchments

Epilogue

“You want a date?”

Daniel turned round to see a pretty young woman standing there holding a large serving platter. She was not asking Daniel if he wanted to go out with her but rather offering him a dried date to eat. He picked one on a skewer and chewed it slowly, savouring it and thinking about its enigmatic significance.

Daniel was back on the plateau of Masada a week later, along with several hundred other people. The event that had brought them all there was the swearing in of an Israel army unit. One of Daniel’s other sisters — Naomi — had two sons in the Israel Defence Forces, and her younger son was about to be sworn in to his unit along with another hundred and twenty young men who had just completed their basic training.

The practice of swearing in at Masada had fallen into disuse but was now being revived and Daniel’s nephew was to be one of the first in this newly revived tradition.

The reason that the date was of such significance was on account of its provenance. During the excavations at Masada between 1963 and 1965 a small cache of ungerminated seeds were found in a jar by Hebrew University archaeologist Ehud Netzer. They were suspected of being 2000 years old. However this could only be tested, by radiocarbon dating, and this was a destructive test that would make it impossible to germinate them thereafter. But the prospects of germinating such old seeds was anything from low to non-existent and it was deemed to be sufficiently important to find out the age of the seeds, for the historical value of the information.

So two of the seeds sent to the University of Zurich where they were carbon dated to between 155 BCE and 64 CE. The remainder of the seeds were given to botanical archaeologist Mordechai Kislev at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv who kept in storage for some forty years. Then, in November 2004, Sarah Sallon, director of the Hadassah Medical Organization’s Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center in Jerusalem asked Kislev if she could have a few to pass on to desert agriculture expert Elaine Solowey, the director of the NMRC cultivation site at Kibbutz Ketura in the Aravah desert.

Solowey was quite surprised at the request, as germinating 2000 year old seeds was something that had never been done before and calling it a “tall order” would have been an understatement. However, she rose to the challenge, and conducted extensive research into how such seeds might be germinated. By January 2005 she was ready to apply her research to the challenge and she set to work, first soaking the seeds in hot water to soften them and make them more absorbent to other liquids, then soaking them in a nutrient, following this up by treating them with an enzymatic fertilizer that was made from seaweed.

Solowey then planted the seeds on the 25th of January 2005. She chose that date for symbolic reasons, because it coincided with Tu Bishvat, the Jewish “New Year for Trees” — a harvest festival when Jews celebrated the renewal of fruit growth after the winter. Two months later, one of the seeds sprouted into a date palm and continued to flourish over the next few years. Because of its age, it was named Methuselah, after the Biblical character who reputedly lived till the age of 969. Three years later it had reached a height of four feet and two years after that it stood well over six feet tall.

Unfortunately, date palms can be male and female and although the males can pollinate the females, only the females can bear fruit. Much to the disappointment of all concerned, Methuselah was male and so could not yield fruit. However, three other seeds started to flower, two of them date palms and one of them Myrrh. One of the date palms had recently flowered and proved to be female. It was this second plant that had produced the first dates of the ancient plant that the honoured guests and relatives of the soon to be sworn in soldiers were now eating.

The flowers of the female plant would also be pollinated later with pollen from Methuselah, thus preserving the entire ancient genome.

As he chewed the date slowly and savoured its rich flavour, Daniel pondered its significance: the triumph of a stubborn people over others who thought themselves culturally superior and believed that this gave them an excuse to Lord it over others. He thought about modern Israel and wondered if, to some small extent at least, they had become like their ancient enemies.

But then he recalled the cruelty and tyranny that Israel’s modern enemies were capable of — even towards their own brethren. And he realized also that it was precisely because the Jewish people had modernized — because they had been able to look to the future, without forgetting the past — that they had managed to bridge the gap between history and destiny in a way that few other nations could even understand.

And in that moment, he realized — that warts and all — Israel was a country that it’s people had a right to proud of. As if sensing the thought going through his mind, his sister Naomi — the proud mother of the young soldier — came into his view and walked towards him. They were joined by Simone and Julia, his other siblings, Nat and Barry (Naomi’s husband). Their parents couldn’t be there: they were babysitting for Romy and the twins.

The siblings and in-laws exchanged a few words about the events of the last two weeks. Daniel explained that the Israeli authorities had interceded on his behalf with the British government and the charges against him had been dropped — including any possible charges relating to his escape. Martin I Costa would be extradited to England to stand trial for Arson, Unlawfully Disposing of a Body, Perverting the Course of Justice and quite possibly attempted murder — all charges arising out of the fire at the house in Ashwell. There was even a possibility that Chienmer Lefou would also be prosecuted.

But it was now time for the families and guests to take their places, as the swearing in ceremony was about to begin. First came the marching-in and the speeches. Daniel sat through them tolerantly, but it was not the speeches he had come to hear. He came here to see the flame being lit and his nephew proclaim in proud and defiant tone — in unison with his fellow soldiers — the words that would guide him not just for the next three years, but also for the rest of his life thereafter:

“Masada shall not fall again!”