FIVE THINGS ABOUT AN AUCTION

1 WHAT’S FOR SALE?

The earliest known stone inscription of the Ten Commandments — and the only version thought to remain intact today — is a white marble slab engraved with 20 lines of faded Paleo-Hebrew Samaritan script. The slab, crafted around AD 300 to 800, likely decorated the entrance to a Samaritan synagogue or home in or near Yavne, a small city in Israel. It weighs 50 kilograms, and is about 60 centimetres in height and length. It’s unclear why the Samaritans’ version of the Ten Commandments survived while others did not.

2 ONE COMMANDMENT IS DIFFERENT

The slab lists nine of the 10 divine rules enumerated in the Book of Exodus, replacing “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” with a commandment unique to the Samaritan sect, which formed as an offshoot of Judaism.

3 THE PRICE TAG

The tablet was being auctioned off in Beverly Hills, Calif. Heritage Auctions of Dallas made the tablet available in preauction bidding, and the price had reached $240,000 by Wednesday afternoon.

4 WHY IS IT IN THE U.S.?

The tablet was uncovered in 1913 during excavations to build a railroad station near Yavne. The man who discovered it reportedly set the slab on the floor of his courtyard, causing many of the letters to fade as people walked on top of it. Current owner Rabbi Saul Deutsch, who runs the Living Torah Museum in Brooklyn, N.Y., obtained the tablet nearly a century later.

5 YOU CAN’T KEEP IT HIDDEN

There is a stipulation to publicly display the tablet, which comes from the Israel Antiquities Authority, the government body that issued a certificate to export the slab in 2005. That stipulation is passed along to subsequent owners.