The legendary King Midas turned everything that he touched to gold. Scott Rogers, a University biology professor, and Zeki Kaya, a plant geneticist from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, are searching for answers about ancient wood, their own gold, in Midas’ tomb.
Rogers and Kaya are testing ancient DNA – searching for a link between the Lebanon cedar presently in Turkey and the wood found in the tomb. There is no Lebanon cedar near the tomb, so what kind of wood was used in the tomb and where it came from is of interest to Kaya and Rogers. The inside of the tomb, discovered in 1959, is lined with timber.
There is a real King Midas, who ruled Phrygia, now present-day Turkey. It is believed that he lived from 740 to 696 B.C. – that is over 2700 years ago.
Kaya wrote to the Anatolian Civilization Museum in Ankara, Turkey, asking for a sample of the wood from the tomb.
Rogers explained that after cutting through wood to find fresh material, he could extract and blow up the DNA. Human, mice and fungal contaminations had to be removed from the wood.
Finally in this past summer, 46 sequences were extracted from the wood. Two of these strands were conifers, which is the closest relative of the Lebanon cedar.
The cedar in Turkey today is 200 kilometers to the north and south of the tomb. Researchers do not know if the wood was brought from somewhere else or if it was grown near the tomb.
‘We may find a tie between the ancient and historical trees and a recent cedar sample. The [research] can determine where the wood came from in the tomb,’ Kaya said.
With this research, more variations can be made to forests.
‘We can improve the forest and make it more genetically diverse,’ Rogers said.
This DNA research can also show what the trees looked like at the time of King Midas.
‘I don’t know how far to take it [the research],’ Rogers said. ‘It took all of six months to get the sequences. I wonder if it is worth is.’
Rogers continued, saying that this research is interesting.
‘No one has done this. This is the first ancient wood [to be tested],’ he said.
The research first came about when Kaya made a proposal to the Fulbright Program to receive an educational grant to do DNA research in the United States. He received this fellowship and came to the State University of New York’s College of Environment Science and Forestry where he worked with Rogers in 2000.
Kaya invited Rogers to lecture at METU where he spoke about the DNA research he is doing with ice. ‘Rogers brought lots of past experience and stimulated interest,’ Kaya said.
Rogers made improvements for testing DNA when he was a graduate student. The methods that he developed are used today. Now very small amounts of plant tissue and ancient organisms can be tested, when previously large, fresh samples were needed. The biological molecules that are needed for testing are still in dead plants.
‘DNA is not so fragile,’ Rogers said. ‘It is pretty resilient.’
Rogers is currently completing an article about his and Kaya’s findings. They plan to continue testing DNA, searching for a better link to current Lebanon cedar.
