Marble tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments auctioned for $5m
Al Jazeera
The tablet sold by Sotheby’s is the oldest known inscription in stone of the ancient text in Paleo-Hebrew script.
The oldest known stone tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments has sold for more than $5m at an auction in the United States.
The New York-based auction house Sotheby’s said the 52kg (115lb) marble slab was acquired on Wednesday by an anonymous buyer who plans to donate it to an Israeli institution.
The final price exceeded the presale estimate of $1-$2m and followed more than 10 minutes of “intense bidding” during the global competition.
The tablet dates from 300 to 800 AD and is inscribed with the commandments in Paleo-Hebrew script — the only complete example of its kind from antiquity, according to Sotheby’s.
It was unearthed during railroad excavations along the southern coast of Israel in 1913 and was not recognised as historically significant at first.
