'One-of-a-kind' Ten Commandments stone found by accident, now valued at eye-popping sum

A tablet used as a paving stone that had been discovered as the oldest known inscription of the Ten Commandments is up for auction next month with Sotheby's in New York.

The stone, which weighs 115 pounds and stands at two feet tall, is believed to be the oldest known tablet featuring the entire Ten Commandments. The estimated age of the tablet somewhere around 1,500 years old. Jasmine is a writer at Fox News Digital and a military spouse based in New Orleans. Stories can be sent to jasmine.baehr@fox.com

"This is really one-of-a-kind. It’s one of the most important historic artifacts that I’ve ever handled," Sharon Liberman Mintz, Sotheby’s international senior specialist of Judaica, books and manuscripts, said to ARTnews.The tablet was first discovered in 1913 near Israel's southern coast during railway construction. For years, it went unnoticed and was used as a paving stone in front of a house, with its inscription facing regular foot traffic.

In 1943, a scholar bought the stone and identified it as a Samaritan Decalogue, an important piece of religious history possibly displayed in a synagogue or private home. The original site of the tablet may have been destroyed during Roman invasions between 400-600 CE or during the Crusades in the 11th century.