Over the last few years, the auction world has sold a variety of ancient and early modern Bibles for record prices. In 2023 Sotheby's New York sold the Codex Sasson, the oldest known Hebrew Bible, going for US$38.1 million. Now the auction house has sold just a smaller part of that religious heritage in the form of a stone tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments.
According to the Book of Deuteronomy, the original Ten Commandments carried by Moses down from Mount Sinai were placed in the Ark of the Covenant; however, Sotheby's on 18 December sold a stone tablet containing the Ten Commandments, alleged to be at least 1,500 years old, claimed to be the oldest known surviving carved version of the document.
Some experts in the field are skeptical about the piece's authenticity and its true age; however, the art market has spoken, and the lot ended up selling for over five times its original estimated price of US$1 million, going for a total of US$5.04 million, including buyers fees, after a bidding war that lasted around 10 minutes. The anonymous buyer intends to donate the work to an Israeli institution.
Sotheby's International Senior Specialist of Judica, Sharon Mintz, with the lot
Lot 1 | Ten Commandments Tablet
Circa 300-800 CE
63.2 x 56.2 x 6.2 cm
Provenance:
- 1913: Tablet was found during excavations for a railroad track near the city of Yavne on the coastal plain of the Land of Israel
- 1913 to 1943: Taken home by the local man who found it while working on the railroad and used as a paving stone in his courtyard
- 1943: Tablet passed to the finder’s son, and its text now recognized, sold to Mr. Jacob Kaplan, a scholar in Israel.
- 1995: Sold by Kaplan’s descendants to the Israeli antiquities dealer Robert Deutsch
- 2005: Sold to Rabbi Saul Deutsch (no relation to the above dealer), Founder and Director of the Living Torah Museum in Brooklyn, New York
- 2016: Deaccessioned by the Living Torah Museum and purchased by the Judaica collector Dr. Mitchell Stuart Cappell
Estimate: US$1,000,000 - 2,000,000
Hammer Price: US$4,200,000
Sold: US$5,040,000
Auction House: Sotheby's New York
Sale: The Ten Commandments
Date: 18 December 2024
The auctioneer opened the bidding for this prized lot at US$1 million, and while he had an irrevocable bid, the bidding war for the lot far exceeded expectations, and that client was quickly out of the running as this bidding war was dominated by the specialists on the phones.
Including advanced bidding, around 35 bids were made for the stone tablet as the price continued to soar for the next 10 minutes. While there were at least four separate Sotheby’s staffers representing their clients on the telephone when bidding crossed into the region of US$3 million and upwards, bidding was heavily dominated by International Senior Specialist of Judaica, Sharon Mintz, and Global Head of Department of Books & Manuscripts, Richard Austin, representing their clients.
It was really Austin’s client who dominated the bidding war. Any time the price increased, his client easily met it with an additional US$100,000 increase. Possibly the most shocking part was when the bidding sat at US$3.85 million, and Austin’s client immediately countered with a bid of US$4 million.
In the end, Austin's client, who had paddle number 2, won the lot with the hammer price of US$4.2 million. After fees were calculated, they paid a total of US$5.04 million. This was well over double the initial high estimate, exceeding the lot's expectations.
While the story of the Ten Commandments and Moses is well known, this tablet itself has a long and rich history. It was created in the Holy Land sometime between 300 and 800 CE. This is quite a wide-spanning range of time, and during that era, a variety of empires ruled over the region, including the Romans up until the 390s, the Byzantines until the 630s, and afterward a variety of Muslim Caliphates.
According to Sotheby's, the lot was discovered in the city of Yavne in 1913, during a railroad construction project during Ottoman rule. The man who discovered it took it home and used it as a stone in his home’s courtyard. In 1943, when the region fell under British rule, the finder’s son inherited the tablet and realized there were inscriptions on it.
The finder’s son then sold it to Dr. Jacob Kaplan, a well-known academic in Tel Aviv who wrote an article on it in 1947 titled “A Samaritan Synagogue Inscription from Yavneh.” This is what led to the current hypothesis regarding the origins of what is referred to now as the Yavne Tablet and its Samaritan origins.
An archeological excavation site in Yavne, the same city where the tablet was uncovered
The finder’s son then sold it to Dr. Jacob Kaplan, a well-known academic in Tel Aviv who wrote an article on it in 1947 titled “A Samaritan Synagogue Inscription from Yavneh.” This is what led to the current hypothesis regarding the origins of what is referred to now as the Yavne Tablet and its Samaritan origins. Sotheby's claim of the tablet's age and origin is supported by the research that follows this branch of research, conducted in 20th century.
Cheif among the researchers of this Samaritan origin theory is Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. He determined based on various linguistic factors that the tablet came during Byzantine rule over the region and confirmed its Samaritan origins. Documents from a 12th-century Jewish traveler indicated that near Yavne there was a large Samaritan community in which the tablet would have been used.
The Samaritans themselves are an interesting group, as while ethnically Jewish, they are not considered religiously Jewish. They originate from the region of Samaria, and although they were once a large community, their numbers decreased under Byzantine and Islamic rule, currently numbering only around 900.
A key difference in their faith from Judaism is that Samaritanism does not consider Jerusalem to be one of Judaism's holy sites. Additionally, Mount Gerizim, and not the Temple Mount, is where the Binding of Isaac took place. They also consider the Torah to be the only holy book and that other works that followed it, like the Talmud, are rejected.
Samaritans conducting the Passover pilgrimage at Mount Gerizim
As for the text of the tablet itself, it contains the regular text that most are familiar with. It should be noted that across the Abrahamic faiths, there are variations in the details of the text as well as where they are located and how they are interpreted. However, the Third Commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” is one of the most widely known ones. Incidentally, it is missing from this tablet.
While odd, experts have chalked this up to being perhaps a mistake by the person who carved this tablet. Additionally, researchers posit that the Second Commandment, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,” implies the Third Commandment by default in some circumstances.
Also, note that the 19th and 20th lines of text read, “I am commanding you today on Mount Gerizim rise up to God.” This emphasizes how Samaritanism emphasized Mount Gerizim as its chief holy site.
However, there are other experts and academics on the region that are a bit more skeptical about the lot. Penn Museum’s Director of Research and Programs, Dr. Brian I. Daniels, stated to the New York Times that, “Objects from this region of the world are rife with fakes.”
Additionally, George Washington University’s Chairman of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Dr. Christopher A. Rollston, states there is no way to authenticate the Samaritan heritage or 1,500-year-old age claims. Dr. Rolloston also pointed out that the missing Third Commandment could be a tactic used by forgers to create interest in the work they are producing.
The experts are also left craving more detailed information, and the story of how it was found and used in someones house is not a subsitute for historical documentation and proper research that would confirm the origins of the tablet. Dr. Rolloston adds that forgeries and embellished stories are also common tactics used by scammers to give their products an air of authenticity.
However, Dr. Daniels also balanced out his criticisms with “Maybe it’s absolutely authentic, and this truly is a historic find.”