The oldest known stone tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments sold for $5 million (£3,983) at a Sotheby’s auction on Wednesday - well above its estimated value of $1 to $2 million (£796,400-£1,592,800).

Weighing 52 kilos, the marble slab is the only complete example of its kind, featuring the Ten Commandments in Paleo-Hebrew script.

Dating back to between 300 and 800 A.D., the tablet was discovered in 1913 during railroad excavations along Israel's southern coast.

Initially, its significance was not recognised, and the tablet was used as a paving stone with the inscription facing downward.

After more than ten minutes of intense bidding the tablet was sold to an anonymous buyer who plans to donate it to an Israeli institution for public display, The New York Times reports. 

The tablet’s inscription is similar to the biblical commandments in both Jewish and Christian traditions but has replaced the third commandment of "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain" and added a Samaritan directive to worship on Mount Gerizim, a sacred site for the Samaritan people near modern-day Nablus in the West Bank.

The tablet was first discovered in 1943 by Jacob Kaplan, whose findings were published in 1947.

The artefact changed hands multiple times before being acquired by Israeli antiquities dealers and eventually ending up in the Living Torah Museum in Brooklyn.