Oldest known tablet of the Ten Commandments to be auctioned off

Sotheby's auction house is auctioning off the oldest known stone tablet with the Ten Commandments. The approximately 1,500-year-old tablet with the ancient Hebrew text is to be auctioned on 18 December, the auction house announced. The tablet is dated to the period between 300 and 800. It is the only completely preserved example from the late Byzantine period. Sotheby's is hoping to realise proceeds of up to two million US dollars (around 1.9 million euros).

"This remarkable tablet is not only an extremely important historical artefact, but also a tangible link to the beliefs that helped shape Western civilisation," said Sotheby's Head of Books and Manuscripts, Richard Austin. Encountering this shared piece of cultural heritage is a "journey through the millennia and a connection to cultures and beliefs told through one of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes".

According to the auction house, the tablet, which weighs 52 kilograms and is around 60 centimetres high, was found in 1913 during construction work for a railway line on the southern coast of Israel. The significance of the find was not recognised for decades. The plaque was used as a paving slab for thirty years. It was not until 1943 that a scientist acquired the stone slab and recognised its historical value. The twenty lines of text are closely based on the biblical text of the Book of Exodus, but the commandment "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" is missing. Instead, a commandment not contained in the Bible to worship God on Mount Garizim, the central holy place of the Samaritans, has been added. (KNA)