he oldest known tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament sold on Wednesday for $5.04 million, more than double its high estimate.
The stone, which dates back around 1,500 years to the Late Roman-Byzantine era, sparked more than 10 minutes of “intense” bidding, according to a statement from Sotheby’s New York, which hosted the sale. The anonymous buyer plans to donate the artifact to an Israeli institution, it added.
The stone is a remarkable artifact from the ancient world — but it lay forgotten for hundreds of years.
Weighing in at 115 pounds and standing two feet tall, the stone was discovered in 1913 during excavations for a new railway line in the southern part of what is Israel today.
It was found close to the sites of early synagogues, mosques and churches and was inscribed with the 10 Biblical laws in Paleo-Hebrew script. Even so, the significance of the find was not fully appreciated and the stone went on to be used as paving outside someone’s house for three decades. The inscription was placed face upward and the stone was exposed to heavy foot traffic.
Fortunately, the slab’s historic importance was eventually recognized and preserved.
According to Sotheby’s the stone was sold to a scholar in 1943. This unnamed individual “recognized it as an important Samaritan Decalogue featuring the divine precepts central to many faiths, one that may have originally been displayed in a synagogue or a private dwelling,” the statement said.
Samaritanism is an ancient, monotheistic religion based on the first five books of the Old Testament. Though related to Judaism, Samaritanism has Mount Gerizim — in the modern-day West Bank — as the dwelling place of Jehovah, rather than Mount Zion.
