The 52-kilogram marble slab, engraved with the Ten Commandments in Paleo-Hebrew script, is set to be auctioned by Southeby’s New York on December 18.
Dating to the late Roman-Byzantine era, the tablet is approximately 1,500 years old and is the only complete tablet of the Ten Commandments from this era.
Discovered in 1913 during railroad excavations along Israel's southern coast, the tablet initially went unrecognized as a historically significant artifact and was used as a paving stone in a local home until 1943, when a scholar recognized its historical significance and purchased it.
Israel allowed the 1,500-year-old Samaritan tablet to leave the country 20 years ago only on condition that whoever owns it ensures that it’s always available for public display.
Sharon Mintz, the senior Judaica specialist for the auction house, said that she’d like to see the tablet end up with a public institution but that the terms of the sale do not include any such requirement.
“This remarkable tablet is not only a vastly important historic artifact but a tangible link to the beliefs that helped shape Western civilization,” said Richard Austin, global head of books and manuscripts at Sotheby’s, on their website.
The description added, "White marble tablet, approximately 63 x 56 x 6 cm, weighing approximately 52 kg, neatly chisel-inscribed with the Mosaic Ten Commandments in their Israelite Samaritan version, 20 lines in a Paleo-Hebrew script, each line containing between eleven and fifteen characters, with margins of about 10 cm on either side."
The inscription on the slab closely mirrors the Biblical verses recognized in both Christian and Jewish traditions but omits the third commandment prohibiting the misuse of the Lord's name. Instead, it does, however, feature an instruction to worship on Mount Gerizim, near the Palestinian city of Nablusa, which was sacred to the Samaritans.
Sotheby's said, "The Yavne Tablet is not simply the earliest surviving complete inscribed stone tablet of the Ten Commandments, but the text it preserves represents the spirit, precision, and concision of the Decalogue in what is believed to be its earliest and original formulation.”
Sotheby's estimates the tablet will fetch between $1 million (R18 million) and $2 million (R36 million) at auction.
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