A Lesson from History About Taxes, Section Three: Taxation in Ancient Egypt and The Rosetta Stone
W. Marc Gilfillan, CPA, NC, individual and business CPA and Tax expert, shares about the history of taxes…
The Rosetta Stone, unearthed by Napoleon, was perhaps the most seminal Egyptian archaeological discovery in history. The Stone had the same writing in 3 different languages: hieroglyphics, demotic (Egyptian script) and Greek. Using the Greek version, archaeologists were able to decipher the Egyptian script and subsequently the hieroglyphics. But the question remains: Egyptians had paper, called papyrus, so why was the writing carved into a rock? Furthermore, why three languages? And why Greek?
The Stone has been in existence before 3000 B.C. The Rosetta Stone was carved in 200 B.C. while Ptolemy V was in power (a king of Greek origin). So what happened to the Pharaohs? By this point in history, Egypt was conquered in 700 B.C. by the Assyrians, then the Persians, and finally the Greeks in 330 B.C. After an existence of 2000+ years, Egypt was finally declining.
The Ptolemy dynasty were for the most part decent rulers, but in 200BC, when the Rosetta Stone was created, Egypt had just concluded a ten year long civil war. The internal war broke out because of exorbitant and oppressive taxation put in place by corrupt Greek tax collectors. As the struggle ended there was still much unrest. Ptolemy V issued a Proclamation of Peace which gave forgiveness for all rebels and tax debtors, lowered taxation practices, eliminated forced conscription into the navy, and reinstituted tax immunity to the priests, temples, and their crops and lands, as it had been in the reign of the ancient pharaohs. If you’re feeling the pressure with today’s taxes, call a Cary NC Accountant for all your tax-related needs!
This was a superb advantage and financial windfall for the priests and temples and they desired to be sure first all people knew it and, also, did not desire it to be taken away again at some point in the future.
As a result, “Rosetta Stones” were etched and placed in front of every temple throughout Egypt. The Rosetta stones proclaimed to everyone that tax immunity had been given to the priests and this temple and acted as a “Do Not Enter” sign to curtail the lawlessness of the king’s tax men. Go here if you want help with modern-day Tax Preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll in Raleigh NC.
This still begs the question: why carved into stone? The answer is because the priests desired to make sure it wouldn’t fade in history or able to be simply destroyed. Another question was why put it in three languages? The Stone was created in three languages so that everyone may see and heed the proclamation the priests wanted to send to all of Egypt. The stone was written in Greek to be especially direct to the king’s tax collectors that they could not even go in the gates of the temple.
As a result of the most important Egyptian archaeological discovery ever, the Rosetta Stone unraveled the pictographic language of the Egyptians, enabled us to discover the key to hieroglyphic writing and thereby the key to unlocking the history and the understanding of the Egyptian way of life for 3000 years was, in truth, a tax document.
Keep an eye out for W. Marc Gilfillan’s next chapter in his History of Taxes series: Taxes and The Colussus of Rhodes.
http://www.marccpa.com/
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