Can a Commiphora seedling germinated from an ancient seed solve a Biblical mystery?

A seed recovered during archaeological excavations of a cave in the Judean desert was germinated, with radiocarbon analysis indicating an age of 993 CE– 1202 calCE. DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis identified the seedling as belonging to the angiosperm genus Commiphora Jacq., sister to three Southern African Commiphora species, but unique from all other species sampled to date. The germinated seedling was not closely related to Commiphora species commonly harvested for their fragrant oleoresins including Commiphora gileadensis (L.) C.Chr., candidate for the locally extinct “Judean Balsam” or “Balm of Gilead” of antiquity. GC-MS analysis revealed minimal fragrant compounds but abundance of those associated with multi-target bioactivity and a previously undescribed glycolipid compound series. Several hypotheses are offered to explain the origins, implications and ethnobotanical significance of this unknown Commiphora sp., the first discovered at an archaeological site in..., All of the DNA sequence data, with the exception of the sequences from the unknown Commiphora species, were derived from a previously published study: Gostel, M., Phillipson, P. and A. Weeks. 2016. Phylogenetic reconstruction of the myrrh genus, Commiphora (Burseraceae), reveals multiple radiations in Madagascar and clarifies infrageneric relationships. Systematic Botany 41(1): 67  81.  [http://dx.doi.org/10.1600/036364416X690598](http://dx.doi.org/10.1600/036364416X690598). The DNA sequence data for the unknown Commiphora species were generated by the present study and were also accessioned within GenBank ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/)): OP96395, OP963952, OP963953, OP963954.
The phylogeny was inferred from the gene-partioned matrix of DNA sequence data using maximum likelihood algorithms as implemented by IQ-Tree (multicore version 1.6.12) web-interface (Trifinoupolis et al. 2014). Within IQ-Tree, the best-fitting model of seq..., , # Can a *Commiphora* seedling germinated from an ancient seed solve a Biblical mystery?

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The dataset provides all files needed to reproduce testing the phylogenetic placement of an unknown *Commiphora* (Burseraceae) species and the results from the phylogenetic analyses.

## Description of the data and file structure

DNA sequence data files:

* Commiphora_Concatenated_Matrix_Final.nex: the aligned matrix of concatenated DNA sequences.
* Data_Partition_Delimiters.nex: the description the partitioning of these concatenated DNA sequences by gene type.

Results from phylogenetic analysis of concatenated DNA sequences using maximum likelihood and 100 bootstrap replicates within iQtree.

* iQtree_100reps_Commiphora_Concatenated_Matrix_Final.nex.log: log file from iQtree analysis using 100 bootstrap replicates that specifies analytical parameters, their performance, and their output. Analyses are inclusive of all concatenated DNA sequences.
* iQtree_100reps_Commiphora_Concatenated_Matrix...,