The dwarf palm tree of the king: a Nannorrhops ritchiana in the 24^th-23^rd century BC palace of Jericho

Abstract

Charred botanical finds from the excavation of the Early Bronze Age city of Jericho (Tell es-Sultan), one of the earliest urban centers of 3^rd millennium BC Palestine, were collected during the 2015-2017 excavation seasons carried out by Sapienza University of Rome and the Palestinian MoTA-DACH. Among other plant macro-remains, a round fruit was found in the subsidiary room behind the throne room of Royal Palace G, next to a vase, in the burnt filling overlying the platform. It was identified as a drupe of a dwarf palm, through classical archaeobotanical techniques and computed tomography scan. Two dwarf palms were taken into consideration: the Mediterranean dwarf palm (Chamaerops humilis L.) and the Mazari palm (Nannorrhops ritchiana (Griff.) Aitch. native to the Saharo-Indian region), both with small, round/oval fruits, none of which currently grows in the area of Jericho. A detailed analysis of iconography, archaeobotanical literature and herbarium samples of both species stored in Rome (RO), Florence (FIAF) and Edinburgh (E), has allowed to identify the charred drupe as Nannorrhops ritchiana. Its presence in the palace suggests the existence of an overland commercial track to the south-east, across the desert of Saudi Arabia, which only recent excavations and other finds have revealed.

Keywords:

• Jericho
• Nannorrhops ritchiana
• sacred tree
• archaeobotany
• iconography
• Early Bronze Age

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the MOTA-DACH of the Palestinian National Authority for its support and constant cooperation to the research activities of Sapienza University Expedition. An acknowledgement goes to Anna Millozza and Agnese Tilia for helping in the research of dwarf palm specimens and for the digitalization of the Chamaerops humilis specimen found at the Sapienza University Herbarium of Rome, Flavio Tarquini from the Botanical Garden of the Sapienza University for providing fresh specimens of unfertilized fruits of Nannorrhops ritchiana, Lesley Scott from the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh for readily providing digitized images of Nannorrhops ritchiana samples, Silvia Capuani from the Institute for Complex Systems of the National Research Council (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - CNR) and PhD candidate Sveva Longo from the Physics Department of the University of Messina for performing the CT scan and processing the images.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This article is a product of the PeMSea Project [Prin2017] (A.3. Food traditions & food plants) funded by the Italian Ministry of Scientific Research and University. Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca.