The
Atlantic pistachio tree is not only a source of food and a lesson in mutuality,
thanks to a very strange symbiotic relationship it has with an insect. It was
also a goddess, at least once upon a time. In Israel, fall doesn't trumpet its
arrival in a cacophonous changing of leaves. A rare one whose leaves do turn
russet in the best tradition of more northern climes is the wild terebinth,
a.k.a. the Atlantic pistachio – oft-mentioned in the bible and a source of
superfood for the locals before they were even human.
Some
terebinths are low and bushy, like in the Valley of Elah, where David fought Goliath (1 Sam. 17:2 - elahis the name of
this tree in Hebrew). Yet others have broad girths and wide crowns, in the rare
places where deforestation over the centuries was avoided.
The Pistacia atlantica nuts among the “choice fruits”
of Canaan that Jacob instructed his sons to take back to Egypt (Gen. 43:11)
were pistachios (although the Hebrew word used in that verse, botnim, is today
translated as “peanuts”). Today we know that Jacob did the Egyptians a favor –
the true pistachio, a relative of the Atlantic pistachio, is now widely touted
as a superfood.
Then
there’s the grisly tale of the death of Absalom, son of King David. The Bible
says it was from the boughs of a “great terebinth” (some versions say oak) that
Absalom found himself caught by his famously heavy tresses, when his father’s
general, Joab, found him and ran him through (2 Sam. 18:9–15).
See
pictures and read article at -- http://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium-1.629771
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