The History of Taxes, Section 3: Tax Law 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, discovered by Napoleon, was perhaps the most eye-opening Egyptian archaeological find to date. The Stone had the same text in 3 different languages: hieroglyphics, demotic (also called Egyptian script) and Greek. Using the Greek translation, we figured out how to decipher the demotic and subsequently the hieroglyphs. But the query is sustained: Egyptians had paper, known today as papyrus, so why was the work etched into stone? Also, why 3 languages? And why Greek?
The Stone has been in existence since 3000 B.C. The Rosetta Stone was carved in 200 B.C. during the reign of Ptolemy V (an emperor of Greek origin). So where did the Pharaohs go? At this point in history, Egypt had been taken over in 700 B.C. by the Assyrians, after that the Persians, and eventually the Greeks in 330 B.C. After an existence of 2000+ years, Egypt was in decline.
The Ptolemy’s were for the most part decent kings, but in 200BC, during which the Rosetta Stone was carved, Egypt had just concluded a ten year long civil war. The civil war started because of excessive and oppressive taxes strengthened by tough Greek tax collectors. When the struggle ceased there was still much unrest. Ptolemy V mandated a Proclamation of Peace which gave forgiveness for all rebels and tax debtors, lowered taxation practices, eliminated forced conscription into the navy, and reinstated tax exemption 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 CPA 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 all people knew it and, also, didn't want it to be taken away again at a time in the future.
As a result, “Rosetta Stones” were carved and placed at the entrance of each temple throughout Egypt. The Rosetta stones acted as warnings to everyone that tax exemption had been given to the priests and this temple and acted as 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 would not disappear or able to be simply destroyed. Another question was why write it in three languages? The Stone was carved in 3 languages because everyone could see and heed the command the priests desired to spread to all of Egypt. The stone was written in Greek to be crystal direct to the king's tax collectors that they couldn't even set foot in the temple gates.
As a result of the most important Egyptian archaeological discovery ever, the Rosetta Stone unraveled the mysterious 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 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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