The oldest stone inscription giving a rendering of the "Ten Commandments" will go up for auction on 18 December at Sotheby’s in New York.
Dating to the late Roman-Byzantine era, the “remarkable” artefact is approximately 1,500 years old and is reportedly "the only complete tablet of the Ten Commandments still extant from this early era", notes the auction house.
The twenty lines of text incised on the stone closely follow the Biblical verses relating to both the Christian and Jewish traditions, Sotheby's notes. However, the tablet contains only nine of the commandments as found in the Book of Exodus, omitting the admonition: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain.
