Earned Income Tax Credit | A Lesson from History About Taxes, Section Three: Taxation in Ancient Egypt and The Rosetta Stone

A Lesson from History About Taxes, Section Three: Taxation in Ancient Egypt and The Rosetta Stone

W. Marc Gilfillan

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 duplicated text in three different languages: Egyptian hieroglyphs, demotic (also called Egyptian script) and Greek. Using the Greek translation, archaeologists figured out how to decipher the Egyptian script and subsequently the hieroglyphics. But the question is sustained: Egyptians had a form of paper, called papyrus, so why was the work etched into a rock? Also, why three languages? And why Greek?

The Stone has been around since 3000 B.C. The Rosetta Stone was created in 200 B.C. while Ptolemy V was in power (a king of Greek origin). So where did the Pharaohs go? By this time, Egypt was conquered in 700 B.C. by the Assyrians, then the Persians, and finally the Greeks in 330 B.C. After existing for 2000+ years, Egypt was in decline.

The Ptolemy dynasty were by and large decent rulers, but around 200BC, when the Rosetta Stone was etched, Egypt had recently concluded a 10-year long civil war. The civil war started over exorbitant and oppressing taxes put in place by tough Greek tax collectors. As the struggle ceased there was continuous unrest. Ptolemy V issued a Proclamation of Peace which gave general amnesty for any rebel and tax debtors, reigned in taxation practices, ceased forced conscription into the navy, and reinstituted tax exemption to the priesthood, temples, and their crops and lands, as it had been in the days of the ancient pharaohs. If you’re feeling the pressure with today’s taxes, call a Raleigh NC Accountant for all your tax-related needs!

This was a superb advantage and monetary windfall for the priesthood and temples and they wanted to make sure first all people knew it and, secondly, didn’t want it to be thrown away again at a point in the future.

As a result, “Rosetta Stones” were created and placed at the entrance of every temple in Egypt. The Rosetta stones proclaimed to everyone that tax immunity had been granted to the priests and this temple and was a “Do Not Enter” proclamation 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 Cary NC.

All of this still begs the question: why written into stone? The answer is because the priests wanted to make sure it wouldn’t fade in history or able to be easily destroyed. Another question was why put it in 3 languages? The Stone was written in three languages so that everyone could read and heed the proclamation the priesthood desired to spread to all people of the country. It was written in Greek to be especially direct to the king’s tax men that they couldn’t even come in the temple gates.

So, the most important Egyptian archaeological discovery ever, the Rosetta Stone unraveled the weird language of the Egyptians, enabled us to discover the key to hieroglyphic writing and thereby the secret to unlocking the history and the understanding of the Egyptian empire for 3000 years was, in fact, 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/

Filed Under Earned Income Tax Credit | Leave a Comment

Tagged With , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments

Leave a Reply