The oldest known copy of the Bible’s 10 Commandments has gone on rare display at Jerusalem’s Israel Museum, two weeks before the fragile manuscript is set to be returned to a pitch-black climate-controlled storage facility.

Part of the 2,000-year old Dead Sea Scrolls – a collection of 981 ancient biblical manuscripts discovered in the 1940s and 50s – the text has never-before been displayed in Israel and, due to its delicate condition, has only ever been shown in a handful of brief exhibits abroad.

The manuscript is part of 14 ancient objects being displayed in the temporary exhibition A Brief History of Humankind. Also included are a set of 1.5 million-year-old tools for elephant hunting, the oldest known remains of a communal bonfire dating back 800,000 years, the world’s oldest sickle and skulls from the oldest remains of a family burial. A Mesopotamian tablet loaned to the museum and dating back 5,000 years, as well as a collection of 2,700-year-old Turkish coins, are also on display along with an original hand-written copy of Einstein’s theory of relativity.

“In 50 years, we are only one of only a few museums worldwide that can tell such a broad story from its own holdings,” said museum director James Snyder. “We are doing so with objects that originated here.”

The exhibition runs from 1 May 2015 until 2 January 2016, though the scroll will be returned to climate-controlled storage on 14 May 2015.

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