An ancient stone tablet from the late Byzantine period featuring the Ten Commandments was accidentally discovered as a stepping stone at a private residence. Now the Christian artifact is being auctioned off, projected to sell somewhere between $1 and 2 million.
Sotheby’s recently published a press release describing the importance of the tablet featuring the commandments given to Moses from God. The auction house dated the engravings in the stone to be approximately 1,500 years old, making it the only complete tablet from this era.
“This December, Sotheby’s will auction one of the most widely known and influential texts in history: the oldest inscribed stone tablet of the Ten Commandments. Dating to the Late Byzantine period, this remarkable artifact is approximately 1,500 years old and is the only complete tablet of the Ten Commandments still extant from this early era. It will be offered as a single-lot sale on 18 December,” the statement read.
Richard Austin, Sotheby’s Global Head of Books & Manuscripts, noted the historical importance of the tablet and how it would eventually shape the culture and moral fabric of Western civilization as we know it today. “This remarkable tablet is not only a vastly important historic artifact, but a tangible link to the beliefs that helped shape Western civilization. To encounter this shared piece of cultural heritage is to journey through millennia and connect with cultures and faiths told through one of humanity’s earliest and most enduring moral codes,” he said.
As mentioned, the stone served as a paving stone on private property. Despite being exposed to foot traffic for nearly three decades, the artifact is still in remarkably good shape. The press release noted that the stone was “unearthed in 1913 during railway excavations along the southern coast of the Land of Israel, near the sites of early synagogues, mosques, and churches. The significance of the discovery went unrecognized for many decades, and for thirty years it served as a paving stone at the entrance to a local home, with the inscription facing upwards and exposed to foot traffic.”
The Christian Tribune recently reported on another ancient Christian artifact known as the Megiddo Mosaic, which is currently on display at the Museum of the Bible. The mosaic, discovered in 2005 by Israeli archaeologists was a notable artifact for Christian history as it clearly demonstrated early followers of Christ believed in his divinity. The artwork features a Greek inscription that reads, “To God Jesus Christ.”
The Museum of the Bible recently released a promotional video explaining the significance of the mosaic. “For almost 1800 years, the most important archeological discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls has lay buried in the holy land beneath the grounds of a maximum security prison in Megiddo,” it said. The narrator added, “Its tiles hold history, a series of Inscriptions outside of the Scriptures, the very first physical proclamation of Jesus. Christ is God, an unlikely cast of characters, a group of women leaders in a Roman Centurion tell us the story through perfectly preserved mosaic inscriptions.”