A Landmark Event for the History of Art and Culture and for Collectors Alike

A landmark event for the history of art and culture and for collectors alike. The oldest known tablet bearing the “Ten Commandments” from the Book of Exodus has been sold at Sotheby's in New York, fetching twice its pre-sale estimate.

The artefact is considered the only surviving record of the Ten Commandments to have come down to us from antiquity (c. 300-800 AD). On a marble tablet weighing 52 kilograms and standing 60 centimetres high, nine of the ten commandments from the Book of Exodus are inscribed in 20 lines of Hebrew.

The tablet, discovered in 1913 on the southern coast of Israel during the building of a railway, at first attracted no attention whatever from scholars. For three decades the marble slab was quite simply used as paving at the entrance to one of the local houses. Only in 1943 was it recognised as a unique archaeological monument.

The object was sold for 5 million dollars