New York, United States:
A stone tablet with engravings of the Ten Commandments sold for $5 million at auction on Wednesday, Sotheby's announced.
The high mark was achieved despite questions about the tablet's authenticity: no one has claimed it is the original, of Biblical fame, but some experts expressed doubts about its alleged provenance, dating between the years 300 and 800 CE.
Another objection to the 52-kilogram slab, which was reportedly discovered in 1913 in what is now Israel, is that it contains only nine of the 10 commandments considered sacred by both Jews and Christians.
However, the excitement surrounding it prevailed as bidding eventually rose to $4.2 million, with the final sale reaching $5 million, including fees.
Those shocked by the price can freely swear: the tablet does not contain the commandment against taking the Lord's name in vain.
The New York auction house had expected it to sell for $1 million to $2 million.
The tablet is said to have been discovered during excavations for the construction of a railway line.
It bears a Paleo-Hebrew script and, according to Sotheby's, was kept in private hands until an archaeologist living in Israel realized its importance and purchased it.
“It was exciting to work with this ancient object. There is no other stone like it in private hands,” Sharon Liberman Mintz, a specialist on Jewish texts for Sotheby's, told AFP.
The record eventually made its way to the Living Torah Museum in Brooklyn before being sold to a private collector.
In a statement, Sotheby's said the tablet has been studied “by leading scientists in the field and published in numerous scholarly articles and books.”
However, several experts told the New York Times they had questions about its origins.
“Maybe it's absolutely authentic,” said Brian Daniels of the Penn Cultural Heritage Center in Philadelphia, although he cautioned: “Objects from this region of the world are rife with forgeries.”
“It is impossible” to determine the age of the inscription, Christopher Rollston, professor of Biblical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at George Washington University, told the newspaper.
“We don't have any documentation from 1913, and since looters and forgers often make up such stories to give an inscription an aura of authenticity, this story could actually just be a tall tale told by a forger or an antiquarian.”
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