Rare Ten Commandments scroll to be displayed in U.S.

The Ten Commandments scroll – one of the most important of the Dead Sea Scrolls in existence – is going on display in Cincinnati beginning Friday.

In a Nov. 15, 2012 photo artifacts are on display in a viewing room at the Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Ancient Times exhibition at the Museum Center at Union Terminal in Cincinnati. The Ten Commandments scroll, one of the most important of the Dead Sea Scrolls in existence, is going on display in Cincinnati beginning Friday March 29, 2013 [Credit: AP/Gary Landers]

The tightly guarded scroll, one of the approximately 900 Dead Sea Scrolls in existence, can be seen through April 14 at the Cincinnati Museum Center.

The Ten Commandments scroll will be added for the last 17 days of the exhibit “Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Ancient Times,” which also features 10 other scroll fragments from Israel. The scrolls are of great historical and religious significance because they include the earliest known surviving manuscripts of text included in the Hebrew Bible.

A portion of one of the Dead Sea Scrolls is on display in a viewing room at the Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Ancient Times exhibition at the Museum Center at Union Terminal in Cincinnati. The Ten Commandments scroll, one of the most important of the Dead Sea Scrolls in existence, is going on display in Cincinnati beginning Friday March 29, 2013 [AP/Gary Landers]

The Ten Commandments scroll is one of only two ancient manuscripts to feature the commandments, the foundation of Jewish and Christian religions. The other one, known as the Nash Papyrus, is at Cambridge University in England.

Written in Hebrew on a narrow strip of parchment, the scroll is believed to be between 2,010 and 2,060 years old. It is a reasonably well-preserved fragment, including one piece sewn onto another.

The scroll’s arrival in Cincinnati is huge for the Museum Center, which has been negotiating with the Israel Antiquities Authority for months to show it.