Manasir, mats, coarse textiles, brooms, ropes, string and thatch. The timber is used for posts and poles, furniture manufacture and beehives, and the tree provides wood for fuel. The leaf stalks are used for fencing and the fibre is used for textiles. Other products include fishing rafts, brooms, hammocks, carpets, buttons and beads. Food The doum palm fruit-dates are edible. In Eritrea its name is Akat, or Akaat in the Tigre language. The thin dried brown rind is made into molasses, cakes, and sweetmeats. The unripe kernels are edible. The shoots of the germinated seeds are also eaten as a vegetable. In Egypt, the fruit is sold by snack street vendors, and in herbalist shops. It is popular among children, gnawing its sweet yet sour hard fibrous flesh beneath the shiny hard crust. Occasionally, its pulp is roasted with sugar and made into a cold summer drink, similar to how Carob drink is made in Egypt. In Diu, Una and Saurashtra region of Gujarat (India), the tree is known as Hoka Tree and the red ripe edible fruit is known as Hoka. In the northern part of Nigeria, among the Hausa people, it is known as Goruba. In south-eastern Niger, its fruit pulp is known as bri and a traditional well-known millet pancake is made with this pulp as seasoning, called massan bri. A commercial drink in Niger, called Torridité Glacée, is made from this fruit, somewhat reminiscent in taste of ice coffee or milk chocolate. Apart from the use of the fruit as food, juice is extracted from the young fruit and palm wine is prepared from the sap. Egyptian tombs Doum palm was considered sacred by the ancient Egyptians, and the seed was found in many pharaoh's tombs. On September 24, 2007, it was announced that a team of Egyptian archaeologists led by Zahi Hawass, discovered eight baskets of 3,000-year-old doum fruit in King Tutankhamun's tomb. The fruit baskets were each 50 centimetres high, the antiquities department said. The fruit are traditionally offered at funerals. References External links USDA profile - Hyphaene thebaica Egypt: Trees in Egypt - Doom Tree thebaica Desert fruits Flora of the Arabian Peninsula Trees of Africa Fruits originating in Africa Nile Ancient Egyptian culture Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Flora of Egypt Dioecious plants