A Lesson from History About Taxation, Chapter Three: Tax Law in Ancient Egyptian Life 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 single most important Egyptian archaeological discovery in history. The Stone had the same writing in 3 different languages: hieroglyphics, demotic (known as Egyptian script) and Greek. Using the Greek version, we figured out how to understand the Egyptian script and then the hieroglyphics. However, the question is sustained: Egyptians had paper, known today as papyrus, so why was the writing etched in stone? Also, why three languages? And why Greek?
The Stone has been in existence since 3000 B.C. The Rosetta Stone was etched around 200 B.C. while Ptolemy V was in power (an emperor of Greek origins). The question then is what happened to the Pharaohs? By this point in history, Egypt had been taken over in 700 B.C. by the Assyrians, then the Persians, and eventually the Greeks in 330 B.C. After an existence of 2000+ years, Egypt was finally declining.
The Ptolemy’s were by and large decent rulers, but around 200BC, when the Rosetta Stone was etched, Egypt had just concluded a 10-year long civil war. The civil war started because of exorbitant and oppressing taxation put in place by tough Greek tax collectors. When the struggle ceased there was still much unrest. Ptolemy V mandated a Proclamation of Peace which granted general amnesty for any rebel 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 days of the great pharaohs. If you’re feeling the pressure with today’s taxes, call a Raleigh NC CPA for all your tax-related needs!
This was a superb advantage and monetary windfall for the priests and temples and they desired to make certain first everyone knew it and, second, did not want it to be thrown away again at some point in the future.
As a result, “Rosetta Stones” were created and put 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 was a “Do Not Enter” sign to cease 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 carved into stone? The answer is because the priesthood wanted to make sure it wouldn’t disappear or able to be simply destroyed. Another question was why put it in 3 languages? The Stone was written in 3 languages because all could read and follow the message the priests desired to send to everyone of Egypt. The stone was written in Greek to be especially direct to the king’s tax men that they couldn’t even set foot in the temple gates.
So, the most important Egyptian archaeological find ever, the stone translated the pictographic language of the Egyptians, made us capable of discovering the secrets of hieroglyphic writing and thereby the secret to unlocking the mystery of ancient Egypt and the understanding of the Egyptian empire 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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