A 2,000-year-old copy of the Ten Commandments is on display for the first time in Israel

A 2,000-year-old copy of the Ten Commandments — the oldest known complete version — has gone on display for the first time in Israel. It is part of an exhibition at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem dedicated to pivotal objects in human history, from prehistory to the present.

The scroll, which belongs to the Israel Antiquities Authority, is dated between the years 30 B.C. and 1 B.C. It was discovered along with the other Dead Sea Scrolls in the mid-20th century in Khirbet Qumran, an archaeological site near the shores of the Dead Sea that proved to hold a rich trove of ancient texts, including the oldest known versions of the Hebrew Bible.

Because of its delicate state the parchment document has gone on display only rarely, including on a recent trip to the United States. The scroll will be shown for about four weeks, after which the museum will return it to a more protected environment and display a facsimile, a spokeswoman for the museum said.

The exhibition, “A Brief History of Humankind,” which marks the museum’s 50th anniversary, includes a number of ancient documents from the museum’s collection, including some of the world’s oldest coins and some of the first known stone tools. It runs through Jan. 2.