The History of Tax Law, Chapter 3: Taxation 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 possibly the absolute most helpful Egyptian archaeological find in history. The Stone had duplicated text in 3 different languages: Egyptian hieroglyphs, demotic (known as Egyptian script) and Greek. Using the Greek version, we figured out how to understand the Egyptian script and then the hieroglyphs. But the query is sustained: Egyptians had paper, called papyrus, so why was the work etched in stone? Also, why three languages? And why Greek?

The Stone has been around since 3000 B.C. The Rosetta Stone was carved in 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 time, Egypt had been 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 finally declining.

The Ptolemy’s were for the most part decent rulers, but in 200BC, when the Rosetta Stone was carved, Egypt had recently ended a 10-year long civil war. The internal struggle broke out over excessive and oppressive taxation strengthened by corrupt Greek tax collectors. As the struggle ceased there was continuous unrest. Ptolemy V mandated a Proclamation of Peace which granted general amnesty for all rebels and tax debtors, eased tax laws, ceased forced draft into the navy, and reinstituted tax exemption to the priesthood, temples, and their crops and lands, as it had been in the reign 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 great advantage and financial windfall for the priests and temples and they wanted to make sure first all people knew it and, secondly, didn’t desire it to be thrown away again at a time in the future.

As a result, “Rosetta Stones” were created and placed at the entrance of every temple throughout Egypt. The Rosetta stones proclaimed to everyone that tax exemption had been given to the priesthood and this temple and was a “Do Not Enter” sign to cease the lawlessness of the king’s tax collectors. Go here if you want help with modern-day Tax Preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll in Raleigh NC.

This still leaves the question: why written into stone? The answer is because the priests wanted to make sure it wouldn’t disappear or able to be simply disposed. Another question was why write it in 3 languages? The Stone was written in three languages because everyone could read and heed the proclamation the priests desired to send to everyone of Egypt. It was written in Greek to be especially direct to the king’s tax collectors that they could not even set foot inside the gates of the temple.

As a result of the most important Egyptian archaeological discovery in history, the stone unraveled the weird language of the Egyptians, made us capable of discovering the key to hieroglyphic writing and subsequently the key to unlocking the history 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.

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