A late Byzantine period tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments and discovered as a stepping stone in a private residence is going up for auction next month.
The tablet is estimated to sell between $1 and $2 million, according to a press release from Sotheby’s, an international broker of fine art, artifacts, and collectibles.
The stone, which weighs 115 pounds and stands at two feet tall, is believed to be the oldest known tablet featuring the entire Ten Commandments. The estimated age of the tablet somewhere around 1,500 years old.
“This is really one-of-a-kind. It’s one of the most important historic artifacts that I’ve ever handled,” Sharon Liberman Mintz, Sotheby’s international senior specialist of Judaica, books and manuscripts, said to ARTnews.
The tablet was first discovered in 1913 near Israel’s southern coast during railway construction. For years, it went unnoticed and was used as a paving stone in front of a house, with its inscription facing regular foot traffic.
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