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A Lesson from History About Taxation, Chapter Three: Tax Law in Ancient Egyptian Life and The Rosetta Stone
By plrprousers | December 3, 2009
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 absolute most seminal Egyptian archaeological find to date. The Stone had duplicated text in 3 different languages: Egyptian hieroglyphs, demotic (also called Egyptian script) and Greek. Using the Greek version, we were able to decipher the demotic and then the hieroglyphics. But the question is sustained: Egyptians had paper, called papyrus, so why was the writing carved into a rock? Also, why 3 languages? And why Greek?
The Stone has been in existence before 3000 B.C. The Rosetta Stone was etched around 200 B.C. during the reign of Ptolemy V (a king of Greek descent). The question then is what happened to the Pharaohs? By this time, Egypt had been taken over in 700 B.C. by the Assyrians, after that 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 good kings, but in 200BC, when the Rosetta Stone was carved, Egypt had just ended a ten year long civil war. The civil struggle started because of excessive and oppressive taxes put in place by corrupt Greek tax collectors. When the war ended there was continuous unrest. Ptolemy V mandated a Proclamation of Peace which gave forgiveness for all rebels and tax debtors, reigned in taxation practices, eliminated forced conscription into the navy, and reinstated tax immunity to the priests, temples, and their crops and lands, as it had been in the days of the great pharaohs. If you are feeling the pressure with today’s taxes, call a Raleigh NC Accountant for all your tax-related needs!
This was a superb edge and monetary ease for the priests and temples and they desired to make sure first everyone knew it and, secondly, didn’t desire it to be taken away again at some point in the future.
As a result, “Rosetta Stones” were carved and placed in front of every temple in Egypt. The Rosetta stones acted as warnings to all that tax exemption 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 collectors. Go here if you want help with modern-day Tax Preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll in Cary NC.
This still begs the question: why carved into stone? The answer? Because the priests desired to make sure it wouldn’t disappear or able to be simply destroyed. Another question was why write it in 3 languages? The Stone was written in three languages so that all could read and follow the message the priesthood desired to spread to everyone of Egypt. The stone was written in Greek to be crystal clear to the king’s tax collectors that they could not even come inside the temple gates.
As a result of the most important Egyptian archaeological find ever, the stone translated the mysterious language of the Egyptians, enabled us to discover the key to hieroglyphic writing and subsequently the secret to unlocking the mystery of ancient Egypt and the understanding of the Egyptian way of life 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/
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