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A long-hidden historical treasure, this ancient marble tablet bearing the Ten Commandments, once used as a mere stepping stone, is headed to auction with an estimated value between $1-2 million, according to Sotheby’s.

Dating back to the Late Byzantine era (300-800 A.D.), this unique artifact stands as the only complete Ten Commandments tablet from that period. The December 18 auction will showcase this remarkable piece of history.

“We understood how powerful the object was and we were really thrilled to be able to offer it for sale to the public,” Sharon Liberman Mintz, Sotheby’s international senior specialist of Judaica, books and manuscripts, told ARTnews.

“This is really one-of-a-kind,” Mintz said. “It’s one of the most important historic artifacts that I’ve ever handled.”

The imposing two-foot-tall marble tablet, weighing 115 pounds, features twenty lines of Paleo-Hebrew text. While nine of the traditional commandments remain visible, one notable difference exists – rather than prohibiting the misuse of God’s name, it directs worship to Mount Gerizim, a Samaritan holy site.

The tablet’s journey began in 1913 during railway construction near Israel’s southern coast, amid ancient religious structures. Its initial fate saw it purchased by a local Arab resident who unknowingly used it as a walkway stone, its sacred inscription exposed to daily foot traffic.

“People didn’t realize the significance of it. It looked like just a big marble slab,” said Rabbi Shaul Shimon Deutsch, according to the New York Post.

An archaeologist’s discovery in 1943 finally revealed its true worth. The artifact later sold at auction in 2016 through New York’s Living Torah Museum for $850,000 to an anonymous Beverly Hills buyer.

“This remarkable tablet is not only a vastly important historic artifact, but a tangible link to the beliefs that helped shape Western civilization,” said Richard Austin, Sotheby’s global head of books and manuscripts.

“To encounter this shared piece of cultural heritage is to journey through millennia and connect with cultures and faiths told through one of humanity’s earliest and most enduring moral codes.”