Originally published at National Catholic Register
A contentious Ten Commandments tablet has sold at Sotheby’s for $5.04 million — more than twice its high estimate of $2 million. The auction took place on Wednesday in New York City.
Promoted by the auction house as “the earliest surviving inscribed tablet of the Ten Commandments” and purportedly dating to the late Roman-Byzantine era, the marble slab drew intense scrutiny ahead of the sale, with scholars disputing its provenance and authenticity.
According to Sotheby’s, a local worker discovered the roughly 115-pound artifact in 1913 during railway construction in what is now Israel. Unaware of its significance, he reportedly used it as a threshold stone for decades.
It was only in 1943, when scholar Jacob Kaplan acquired the tablet, that its potential importance as a Samaritan Decalogue emerged. Sotheby’s relied partly on this narrative and the object’s wear as indicators of its antiquity.
Some experts remained unconvinced.
“It may or may not be ancient,” said Christopher Rollston, the chairman of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at George Washington University in an interview with CNA.
“Sotheby’s has not done its due diligence with this piece, and I find that to be deeply problematic.” Rollston argued that while
