Friday, November 18, 2016

Samaritan Decalogue tablet sells for $850K

EPIGRAPHY UP FOR AUCTION: Stone inscription of Ten Commandments sells for $850K (Yaron Steinbuch, New York Post).
For sale: the word of God, in slightly less than mint condition.

A mystery antiquities collector got a fantastic deal Wednesday on a stone tablet that bears the earliest known inscription of the Ten Commandments — in large part because the revered religious artifact is as worn out as a ’77 Pinto.

The 115-pound “Decalogue” went for a bargain-basement price of $850,000 at an auction in Beverly Hills, even though it could be as much as 1,500 years old and is considered a “national treasure” in Israel. The artifact might have been priceless if it wasn’t treated like garbage after it was first unearthed in the Middle East in 1913.

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I look forward to hearing where it will be on permanent display to the public, which was a condition of the sale.

Background here and links.