One of the earliest tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments will be auctioned by Sotheby’s on Wednesday. The company says it is a rare example of a complete tablet, dating from C.E. 300-800. The marble slab is about five feet tall and is carved in Paleo-Hebrew characters.
It was unearthed in 1913 during railroad excavations in the Ottoman Empire in present-day Israel, but its importance was not recognized for decades. In 1943, the tablet was sold to a scholar who identified it as an important Samaritan Decalogue containing divine precepts central to many faiths.
The original site of the tablet was probably destroyed during the Roman invasions of C.E 400-600 or the later Crusades of the 11th century.
Over the years, it has even been used as part of the entrance to a private home. A Sotheby’s expert told the New York Times that the tablet’s text is partly worn precisely because people used to walk on its surface.
The tablet contains only nine of the ten commandments mentioned in the Book of Exodus: the third, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain,” is missing; an omission that has left experts wary. According to the latter, this is a typical practice of forgers, who are liable to add or omit a detail or a transcription in order to make their “works” more fascinating. However, the company reiterated that this is an authentic artifact.
The engraving also directs believers to worship on Mount Gerizim, a holy site for the Samaritans near the present-day city of Nablus. As stated by Richard Austin, Sotheby’s global head of books and manuscripts, “This remarkable tablet is not only a vastly important historic artifact, but a tangible link to the beliefs that helped shape Western civilization”.
Bidding to secure the highly prized tablet will start at $1 million.
