By Tablet Staff

The oldest known stone tablet featuring the Ten Commandments, believed to date between 300 and 800 A.D., is set to go up for auction this month in Manhattan, according to Sotheby’s New York.

Weighing 155 pounds, the marble slab is inscribed in Paleo-Hebrew script and will be sold on Dec. 18. The auction house estimates its value at $1 million to $2 million.

Discovered in 1913 during railroad excavations along Israel’s southern coast, the tablet initially went unnoticed as a historical treasure. From 1943, it was used as a paving stone until its significance was recognized by a scholar who acquired it.

By 1995, the artifact found its way to an Israeli antiquities dealer and later became part of the Living Torah Museum’s collection in Brooklyn. In 2016, collector Mitchell S. Cappell purchased it for $850,000.

The tablet’s text closely mirrors the Biblical Ten Commandments but omits the directive against taking the Lord’s name in vain. Instead, it includes a unique commandment instructing worship on Mount Gerizim, a site sacred to the Samaritans, Sotheby’s revealed.

The upcoming auction is expected to attract significant attention as bidders weigh in on the tablet’s authenticity and value.