A tablet engraved with the Ten Commandments sells for $5 million at auction in New York

This tablet, presented as the oldest in the world engraved with the Ten Commandments, dates back to a period between the year 300 and 800, according to the Sotheby’s auction house.

A marble tablet presented by Sotheby’s as the oldest in the world engraved with the Ten Commandments was sold for more than $5 million (4.83 million euros) on Wednesday, December 18, the auction house announced in New York. York. After a battle lasting several minutes at the company’s headquarters, the 52-kilo object, which Sotheby’s believes dates back to a period between 300 and 800, during the Byzantine Roman period, was sold for $4.2 million. , or more than $5 million including fees. Sotheby’s had estimated it at between $1 million and $2 million.

Discovered in 1913 during excavations for the construction of a railway in the current territory of Israel, the tablet bears the inscription, in paleo-Hebrew alphabet, of verses from nine of the ten commandments which appear in the Bible and the Torah. “The person who dug it up did not realize its importance and took it home to use as a paving stone. It remained there for around thirty years, until a archaeologist living in Israel, Dr. Jacob Kaplan, recognized its importance and purchased it.”explained to AFP Sharon Liberman Mintz, specialist in Jewish texts at Sotheby’s New York, during a presentation of the object in early December.

The stone then passed through the Torah Museum in Brooklyn, then was purchased by a private collector, its last owner before the sale. According to the Sotheby’s specialist, “there is no other stone of this type in private hands (…) all other pieces are small fragments” and are found in museums. Other experts cited by the New York Times called, before the sale, for caution given the difficulty of authenticating such an object. “Objects from this region are full of fakes”declared the director of research at the Penn Cultural Heritage Center in Philadelphia, Brian Daniels, while believing that this plaque could be “authentic”.

In its press release announcing the result of the sale, Sotheby’s states that “this historic object has been studied by the greatest specialists in the field and cited in numerous scientific articles and works, the most recent of which was published at the beginning of this year.”