Forbes reports that Sotheby’s is offering a 1,500-year-old biblical document that includes layers of text and meaning–in three languages.

Known as the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, the piece was written over the span of three centuries and stowed in a sacred monastery until landing in the hands of a pair of British twins by way of local Egyptian dealers.

Now an English college is cannibalizing its library and cashing out, to pay for some building renovations.

A rare manuscript of a speech by Abraham Lincoln calling on the country to unite amid civil war in 1864 sold at auction Thursday for 3.4 million dollars.

The sale, held at Christie’s in New York on the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, was a record for a US historical manuscript, according to the auction house, and inside the three to four million dollar estimate.

In the November 10, 1864 speech, made shortly after he won re-election, Lincoln wrote: “Now that the election is over, may not all, having a common interest, reunite in a common effort, to save our common country?” Source: AFP