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full screen An over 1,200-year-old stone tablet with the Ten Commandments has been sold at Sotheby’s in New York. Archive image. Photo: Richard Drew/AP/TT
A 52-kilogram stone tablet with ten God’s commandments engraved has been sold at auction at Sotheby’s in New York for 5 million dollars, around 55 million Swedish kronor.
The provenance of the painting has been questioned, not because anyone has claimed it to be the biblical original, but because the painting has been dated to between 300 and 800 AD. Experts have also expressed doubts because it contains only nine of the Ten Commandments.
But those who swore at the high price, which was almost five times higher than what it was valued at, need not worry because the commandment not to abuse the name of the Lord your God is included.
The commandments are in paleo-Hebrew script and the stone tablet is said to have been found in 1913 in what is now Israel. According to Sotheby’s, it was in private ownership until an archaeologist living in Israel realized its importance and bought it.
The stone tablet later ended up in a Jewish museum in Brooklyn before being sold to a private collector.