Oldest copy of Ten Commandments to be shown

JERUSALEM – The world’s oldest complete copy of the Ten Commandments is going on rare display at Israel’s leading museum in an exhibit tracing civilization’s most pivotal moments.

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 is so brittle that it will only be on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem for two weeks before it is returned to a secure, pitch-black, climate-controlled storage facility there.

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.

The exhibit includes tools used in an elephant hunt from 1.5 million years ago, the oldest known remains of a communal bonfire from 800,000 years ago, skulls from the oldest remains of a family burial and the world’s oldest complete sickle – a 9,000-year-old object that represents the transition from hunter-gatherers to settled civilization working the land.

All objects were discovered in the Holy Land.