Editing Seed bank (section)

== Early concepts ==
In [[Zoroastrianism|Zoroastrian]] mythology, [[Ahura Mazda]] instructed [[Jamshid|Yima]], a legendary king of ancient Persia, to build an underground structure called a ''Vara'' to store two seeds from every kind of plant in the known world. The seeds had to come from plant specimens that were free of defects, and the structure itself had to withstand a 300-year apocalyptic winter.<ref>Avesta, Vendidad, Fargard 2:24-28</ref> Some scholars have suggested that the Norse equivalent of this myth is the underground garden [[Glæsisvellir|Odainsaker]], which was intended to withstand the three-year ''fimbul'' winter preceding [[Ragnarök|Ragnarok]], to protect the people (and seemingly the plants) that would repopulate the world after this event.<ref>''Teutonic Mythology'' by Viktor Rydberg (1906), v. 1, p. 307-43; v. 2, p. 380-89</ref>