Flora Unveiled

96 i Flora Unveiled

#65

If the gardener do not properly manage the orchard, and he diminish the produce,

the gardener shall measure out the produce of the orchard on the basis of the adjacent

orchards.^29

As translated, Law #64 simply spells out the payment the owner of an orchard is entitled
to receive for allowing a gardener to “manage” the orchard for him; he receives two- thirds
of the fruit produced, while the gardener receives one- third. Law #65 states that if the
gardener neglects his duty so that the harvest is reduced, the owner will still receive two-
thirds of what the crop would have been based on the productivity of adjacent orchards.
The crucial word in these two laws, is “manage,” which is how Harper translated the
Akkadian word rukkubu. However, Pruessner pointed out that a secondary meaning for
the related verb, rakabu, is “to fecundate.”
An even more specific clue to the meaning of the word was obtained from a dictionary
of the Talmud, where the cognate verb in Hebrew (Akkadian is a Semitic language) means
“to graft, to place one branch upon another.” Pruessner found a passage in the Mishna, a
rabbinical treatise probably written in the third and fourth centuries ad, stating that it was
lawful for the people of Jericho to “graft” date palms on the eve of Passover because other-
wise they would spoil:

The men of Jericho graft palms all day, even on the fourteenth of Nissan (Passover

Eve). They would graft a branch of a [male] palm tree that bore poor fruits onto a bar-

ren [female] palm. In this manner, they grafted many branches, and subsequently, the

whole female tree bore good fruit.^30

However, “grafting” in the modern sense of the word cannot be what was meant because
date palm trees cannot be grafted like most other fruit trees. Nor does it make sense to allow
“grafting” on Passover eve to avoid spoilage. Pruessner found the answer to this conun-
drum in the commentary on this passage by Rabbi Rashi, an eleventh- century French rabbi.
According to Rabbi Rashi, “grafting” in this context refers to the following practice:

A soft branch [of the flower cluster] of the male date palm is placed in a split [of the

flower cluster] of the female palm, because the female does not bear fruit, while the

male does.^31

Although Rabbi Rashi’s explanation shows he was confused about which sex bears the
fruit (a confusion perhaps traceable to the ancient Egyptians, as discussed later), his defini-
tion clearly describes the process of artificial pollination as it was practiced in the Middle
Ages and as it is still practiced in many date orchards today. Based on Rashi’s description of
“grafting,” Pruessner felt justified in substituting the word “pollinate” for “manage,” which
makes the law much more specific and also supports the idea that artificial pollination of
date palms was routinely practiced in ancient Babylonia.
Although our understanding of ancient Mesopotamian languages has greatly improved
since Pruessner’s article appeared in 1920, his interpretation of the laws pertaining to pol-
lination has withstood the test of time. According to Benno Landsberger,^32 the Akkadian