The plaque, which weighs 52 kilograms and is roughly 60 centimeters excessive, was present in 1913 throughout development work for a railway line on the southern coast of Israel. The significance of the discover was not seen for many years. The board was used as a sidewalk slab for 30 years.
It was not till 1943 {that a} scientist acquired the stone slab and acknowledged its historic worth. The 20 strains of textual content are carefully based mostly on the biblical textual content of the Book of Exodus, however the commandment “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” is lacking. For this objective, a commandment not contained within the Bible has been added to worship God on Mount Gerizim, the central holy place of the Samaritans.
“This remarkable tablet is not only an extremely important historical artifact, but also a tangible link to the beliefs that helped shape Western civilization,” Sotheby’s head of books and manuscripts Richard Austin mentioned earlier than the public sale. Encountering this shared piece of cultural heritage is a “journey through the millennia and a connection to cultures and beliefs told through one of humanity’s earliest and most enduring moral codes.”
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/kunstmarkt/steintafel-mit-zehn-geboten-fuer-ueber-5-millionen-dollar-versteigert-110183611.html