Sotheby's to auction off ancient Ten Commandments tablet
One of the earliest tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments is scheduled to go up for auction at Sotheby's on Wednesday. The auctioneer says it's a rare example of a complete tablet dating to C.E. 300-800.
The marble slab weighs 115 pounds, is approximately two feet tall, and is carved with Paleo-Hebrew script.
It was unearthed in 1913 during railroad excavations in the Ottoman Empire (in present-day Israel), but its significance was unrecognized for decades. It was even used as part of the entrance to a local home. The tablet's text is worn where people walked across it, a Sotheby's specialist told The New York Times.
This tablet has only nine of the ten commandments mentioned in the Book of Exodus — it's missing, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain." The tablet also instructs adherents to worship on Mount Gerizim, a holy site for Samaritans, near the modern-day city of Nablus.
"This remarkable tablet is not only a vastly important historic artifact, but a tangible link to the beliefs that helped shape Western civilization, said Richard Austin, Sotheby's Global Head of Books & Manuscripts.
Sotheby's has set the opening bid for the tablet at $1 million USD.
