A stone tablet engraved with the Ten Commandments sold for $5 million at auction on Wednesday, Sotheby’s announced.
The high figure was recorded despite questions surrounding the tablet’s authenticity: no one has claimed it is the original of the Biblical legend, but some experts have expressed doubts about its alleged origin, which has been dated to between 300 and 800. It is between AD.
Another complaint against the 115-pound (52-kilogram) slab, which is said to have been discovered in what is now Israel in 1913, is that it contains only one of the 10 Commandments held sacred by both Jews and Christians. Nine are included.
However, excitement remained, as bids eventually reached $4.2 million, with the final sale closing at $5 million including fees.
Those shocked by the price may freely swear: the tablet does not contain a command against taking God’s name in vain.
The New York auction house expected it to sell for $1–2 million.
It is said that this tablet was discovered during excavation for the construction of a railway line.
It contains Paleo-Hebrew script, and according to Sotheby’s, it was privately kept until an archaeologist living in Israel realized its importance and purchased it.
“It has been thrilling to work with this ancient object. There is no other stone like it in private hands,” Sharon Lieberman Mintz, Sotheby’s specialist in Jewish texts, told AFP.
The slab eventually ended up at the Living Torah Museum in Brooklyn before being sold to a private collector.
In a statement, Sotheby’s said the tablet “has been studied by leading scholars in the field and has been published in numerous scholarly articles and books.”
However, several experts told The New York Times that they have questions about its origins.
Brian Daniels of the Penn Cultural Heritage Center in Philadelphia said, “It’s probably absolutely authentic,” though he cautioned: “Objects from this region of the world are full of fakes.”
Christopher Rolston, a professor of Bible and Near Eastern languages and civilizations at George Washington University, told the newspaper “there is no way” to know the age of the inscription.
“We have no documentation from 1913, and since looters and counterfeiters often fabricate such stories to give an inscription an aura of authenticity, this story may actually be a tall tale told by a forger or an antiquities dealer. “
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
