An ancient stone tablet with the world’s oldest engraving of the Ten Commandments has sold for £4 million at auction.
An anonymous bidder bought 1,700-year-old relic at Sotheby’s, New York, for the eye-watering sum despite there being doubts about its authenticity.
Sotheby’s workers hold the marble slab, touted as the oldest version of the Ten Commandments known[/caption]
The stone slab engraved with Ten Commandments weighs 52kg[/caption]
The auction house did not claim the artefact was the original ten commandments stone, written about in the Bible, but did say it was the oldest still in existence, dating back to between 300 and 800 AD.
However, some experts have raised doubts that the tablet really is as old as claimed.
Christopher Rollston, a classical civilizations academic at George Washington University, said the stone “may or may not be ancient”.
He said: “Sotheby’s has not done its due diligence with this piece, and I find that to be deeply problematic”.
Rollston says that Sotheby’s is relying on the wear and tear to prove the engraving is ancient, but that this could have been caused by its use as a paving slab for 30 years.
He also suggested that an unusual feature of the artifact – the third commandment is different from the traditional one – could be a piece of deliberate “surprising content” included by forgers to create interest in the item.
The third commandment from the Old Testament’s Book of Exodus has been swapped out for a different directive.
The Ten Commandments
You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make idols.
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
You shall not covet.
Usually, the third commandment reads: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain.”
But on this list, the reader is directed to worship on Mount Gerizim, which is a holy site for the Samaritans who were part of Judaism around 3,000 years ago.
Sotheby’s has defended the verification behind the piece, and said: “Sotheby’s regularly undertakes due diligence procedures to authenticate and determine the provenance of property prior to accepting it for sale, and the research into this property was no different.”
The hefty marble slab weighs 52kg and is around two feet long.
It was discovered by a man called Jacob Kaplan in 1913 when a railway was being built near the coast of today’s southern Israel.
It was not initially recognised as the incredibly rare artefact, and instead was laid down as a paving slab at the entrance of a home for 30 years.
The words are most worn in the middle, where people walked over it the most.
The commandments are engraved in an ancient form of Hebrew – called Paleo-Hebrew – the only complete example of its kind, according to Sotheby’s.
The tablet fell into the hands of an Israeli antiques dealer in 1995 and then to the Living Torah Museum in Brooklyn.
It was bought by a collector, Mitchell S. Cappell, for £670,000, and he is the owner who sold it at this auction.
Sotheby’s described the Ten Commandments in the Book of Exodus as the “cornerstone of law and morality” and the founding text of Western civilisation”.
Selby Kiffer, Sotheby’s senior specialist for books and manuscripts, said: “Fortunately, the text is all still legible, but it is most worn in the middle where people walked across it.”
The auction was won after ten minutes of global “intense bidding”, and went for far more than the presale estimate of between £1 million and £2 million.
The unnamed bidder said they would donate the relic to an Israeli institution.
