An aerial view of the Ramat Rahel site, where the gardens were discovered.
CREDIT: Boaz Gross, Tel Aviv University
Finding Professor Green's sub-irrigated planter bench in the Cyclopedia of Horticulture established the fact that SIPs have been around for a long time. He made his planter in the 1890-91 period.
Compared to the 2500-year-old gardens at Ramat Rahel, that was just yesterday. Why then is our consumer horticultural education system still fixated on drain holes, sprinklers and other overhead irrigation systems that waste water when compared to sub-irrigation?
Add the fact that sub-irrigation increases yields and produces healthier plants and we have a mystery of the modern age of climate change, conservation and sustainability.
The garden relied on an advanced irrigation system, which collected rainwater and distributed it using artsy water installations, including pools, underground channels, tunnels and gutters.
These water installations ended up being the key to the team's new discovery; the researchers found grains of pollen that likely got trapped in plaster when the installations were renovated and the plaster still wet. The result was preserved pollen grains.
An ancient royal garden has come back into bloom in a way, as scientists have reconstructed what it would've looked like some 2,500 years ago in the kingdom of the biblical Judah.
Their reconstruction, which relied on analyses of excavated pollen, reveals a paradise of exotic plants.
The luxurious garden had been discovered at Ramat Rahel, an archaeological site located high above the modern city of Jerusalem, about midway between the Old City of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. This site was inhabited since the last century of the Kingdom of Judah (seventh century B.C.) until the early Muslim reign in Palestine (10th century), a period that saw many wars and exchanges of power, with the garden evolving under each civilization.
Since excavators discovered the garden, they could only imagine its leafy, flowery inhabitants. That is until now. Read more...