The oldest-known stone tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments could fetch up to $2 million at auction on Wednesday in New York City.
The 1,500-year-old marble slab was found in Israel in 1913, but then spent 30 years as a paving stone at the entrance of a home before its significance was spotted.
The auction, at Sotheby’s in Manhattan, closed at 10am ET and results should be announced sometime today.
The 155-pound tablet features Paleo-Hebrew script text used to record the Bible.
There are twenty lines of text incised on the stone closely following the Biblical verses familiar to Christian and Jewish traditions which believe God gave Moses the Ten Commandments as a guide for living.
However, it contains only nine of the commandments as found in the Book of Exodus, omitting ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain’ while including a new directive – to worship on Mount Gerizim, a holy site specific to the Samaritans.
Sharon Liberman Mintz, Sotheby’s’ specialist in Judaica, said: ‘This is the earliest known complete tablet of the ten commandments, which are of course the moral code that underpins western civilization.
‘It is an astonishing find. When you see it you can feel the resonance of the communication.’
The oldest-known stone tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments
The original site of the tablet – likely a synagogue – was likely destroyed either by the Romans during invasions of the region between 400-600 AD or in the Crusades in the 11th century.
The tablet is the only complete one from the Late Byzantine period that bears the Ten Commandments.
It was discovered during railway excavations near the sites of early synagogues, mosques and churches.
The first two lines on the tablet are dedications and then the commandments are listed.
In 1943, the tablet was bought by a scholar who spotted its significance after translating the Paleo-Hebrew script.
The scholar, known only as Mr Kaplan, then held onto the treasure until the 1990s, when it was sold.
It was sold again in 2005 and then bought by its current owner, American collector Dr Mitchell Stuart Cappell, in 2016.
The story of Moses and the tablets is told in the Book of Exodus that details how the Israelites were led out of slavery in Egypt towards Israel.
For Moses, the team speculated it could be him receiving the laws from God or striking his staff in the water to part the Red Sea as the figure is placed at the foot of a mountain
Scripture states that God called Moses to Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights, giving him instructions for building the tabernacle and conducting offerings.
When God finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him two tablets of stone, the Ten Commandments.
The original stone slabs have never been found, but the ones auctioned in New York are the oldest remaining.
However, archaeologists recently uncovered evidence of the Biblical city where Moses was said to have taken the Israelites.
The Bible states that the Israelites reached the Promised Land, also known as Canaan, around 1406 to 1407 BC after wandering 40 years in the desert.
The Israeli Antiquities Authority working at Zanoah, which is mentioned in the Old Testament, uncovering stone walls, pottery and other artifacts that date back more than 3,200 years.
The 155-pound tablet features Paleo-Hebrew script text used to record the Bible .
The site featured walls fashioned with rows of large, white rocks, which they believed were retaining walls for farming terraces used to create level areas for planting and to protect steeper soil from erosion.
Preserved pottery was also pulled from the ground, with one featuring a stamp on the handle that read ‘of the King,’ which was to honor King Hezekiah’s reign in Judah in 701 BC.
The life of Hezekiah is described in the Bible book of 2 Kings, chapters 18-20.
In 2 Chronicles, the king is said to have reopened the Temple of Solomon, known as ‘the First Temple’ and built on the spot where God created Adam.
Pottery fragments littered the landscape, with about 20 percent dating to the time the Israelites were said to have arrived after the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness- the rest were fashioned over the next 900 years.
A decorated fragment of a cosmetic bowl made of white limestone.
‘It has a wide rim adorned with a decoration of three concentric bands separated by gaps: the external and internal bands are narrow and feature a rope decoration, while the central band is wide and features an intermittent grid pattern,’ the researchers shared in the study.