Oldest copy of Ten Commandments on rare display in Israel

The 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scroll, from a collection of the world’s most ancient biblical manuscripts discovered near the Dead Sea east of Jerusalem, has never before been publicly displayed in Israel and has only been shown in brief exhibits abroad, said Pnina Shor of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The manuscript, on display in Israel, is so brittle that it will only be on display for two weeks before it is returned to a secure, pitch-black, climate-controlled storage facility there.

When you are thinking about universal law, the universal principle of ethics, … this is the first law that comes to your mind.

Exhibit curator Tania Coen-Uzzielli

It is one of 14 ancient objects displayed in “A Brief History of Humankind,” an exhibit of historical objects spanning hundreds of thousands of years. These objects, framed in dramatically lit cases in a dark exhibition hall, all were discovered in the Holy Land, a testament to the region’s central role in human history.

Arts Ten Commandments