I took this off the Internet from various sites.  I cannot confirm it more than that.

    Germinating Seed of Extinct Judean Date Palm

    In biblical times, the Judean date palm was prevalent in the Judean Desert, the Dead Sea, Jericho and the Sea of Galilee. Jericho was actually known as the ‘city of palms’. Although there are many date palms all over Israel today, these do not originate from the biblical date palm, which became extinct around 500 CE. Modern varieties were all imported in the 1950s.

    During 1963-1965, excavations at Herod the Great's palace on Masada, Israel, revealed a cache of date palm seeds preserved in an ancient jar. They had experienced a very dry and sheltered environment for centuries. Radiocarbon dating at the University of Zurich confirmed the seeds dated from between 155 BC to AD 64. The seeds were held in storage for 40 years at Bar-Ilan University, Jerusalem.  In 2004 the seeds came to the attention of Dr. Elaine Solowey, a specialist in rare and medicinal plants at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at the Natural Medicine Research Centre at Kibbutz Ketura. Initial tests using carbon dating verified that the seeds were 2,000 years old.

    Dr Solowey had the idea to attempt to germinate these ancient seeds. She was aware that the biblical date palm had many qualities, not least of all for medicinal purposes.  She soaked the seeds in hot water to enable them to be able to absorb liquid once again. They were then soaked in a nutritional liquid and finally with fertilizer made from seaweed.

    She settled upon the auspicious date of the 15th of the Jewish month of Shvat (25 January 2005) to plant the seeds. This coincided with the Jewish festival of Tu Bishvat, known as the Jewish new year of trees. Six weeks later, one of the seeds sprouted.  Three of the seeds were subsequently planted at Kibbutz Ketura in the Arabah desert in southern Israel.  Eight weeks later one of the seeds had sprouted, and by June 2008, the tree had nearly a dozen fronds and was nearly 1.4 m (4 ft) tall. By the summer of 2010, the sapling stood at about 2 meters tall.
    The plant was nicknamed "Methuselah," after the longest-lived person in the Bible. Methuselah is remarkable in being the oldest known tree seed successfully germinated, and also in being the only living representative of the Judean date palm, a tree extinct for over 1800 years, which was once a major food and export crop in ancient Judea.
    Methuselah reportedly flowered in March 2011 and is male.

    VL