A stone tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments that was carved anywhere between 300 to 800 A.D. will go on the block at Sotheby’s next week and is expected to fetch up to $2 million, the auction house said.
Sotheby's announced last month that it would auction off the tablet, the oldest known artifact of its kind. Inscribed in Paleo-Hebrew script, the late Roman-Byzantine-era marble slab weighs 155 pounds and is about two feet tall, according to the auction house.
Known as the Yavne Tablet, it’s named after the city where it was first found. When first unearthed by construction workers excavating to lay down railroad tracks through the Land of Israel to Egypt in 1913, its historical significance was overlooked, Sotheby’s said. One of those workers took it home and used it as a paving stone in the inner courtyard, where it remained for 30 years.
Archeologists discovery
Flash forward to 1947, when Tel Aviv municipal archaeologist Jacob Kaplan recounted coming across the artifact four years earlier, buying it from the man’s son. It changed hands several times after that, eventually making its way to New York.
Bidding will start at $1 million when the tablet auctioned off next Wednesday, Dec. 18, Sotheby’s said.
The slab’s text follows traditional Christian and Jewish biblical verses, though without the third commandment admonishing against taking the name of the Lord in vain. In its place is an instruction to worship on Mount Gerizim, a holy site specific to the Samaritans.
“The Yavne Tablet is not simply the earliest surviving complete inscribed stone tablet of the Ten Commandments, but the text it preserves represents the spirit, precision, and concision of the Decalogue in what is believed to be its earliest and original formulation,” Sotheby’s said. “The influence of the Decalogue extends far beyond the Judeo-Christian religions, underpinning around the globe the foundational concepts of common law, natural law, formal legal codes, personal conduct, and the social compact.”