The oldest-known stone tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments has sold for over USD 5 million at Sotheby’s in New York.
Dating back to the Late Roman-Byzantine Era (ca. 300-800 AD), the remarkable artefact is the only known complete example of its kind, the auction house said in a statement obtained by Newsflash.
Richard Austin, Sotheby’s Global Head of Books and Manuscripts, said: “This remarkable tablet is not only a vastly important historic artefact, but a tangible link to the beliefs that helped shape Western civilisation.
“To encounter this shared piece of cultural heritage is to journey through millennia and connect with cultures and faiths told through one of humanity’s earliest and most enduring moral codes.”
It sold for USD 5,040,000 (GBP 4.02 million) on 18th December, with the auction house describing it as a marble tablet “weighing 115 lbs and measuring approximately two feet in height” that was initially estimated at USD 2 million.
The tablet, inscribed in Paleo-Hebrew script, was unearthed in 1913 during railway excavations along the southern coast of modern-day Israel.
But the importance of the discovery initially went unnoticed, and the tablet even served as a paving stone at the entrance of a local home for 30 years.
It was eventually sold to a scholar in 1943 after he recognised some of the Ten Commandments on it.
Sotheby’s said that the original site of the tablet was likely destroyed during either the Roman invasions of 400-600 AD or the later Crusades of the 11th century.
The statement went on: “The 20 lines of text incised on the stone closely follow the Biblical verses familiar to both Christian and Jewish traditions.
“However, this tablet contains only nine of the commandments as found in the Book of Exodus, omitting the admonition ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain’ while including a new directive – to worship on Mount Gerizim, a holy site specific to the Samaritans.”
Sotheby’s said: “An extraordinary treasure from antiquity, inscribed with the moral code that underpins Western civilisation, this stone tablet is a bridge between faiths, regions, and eras.”
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Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash
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