A Drop of History 132

Sphinx, the Panagia of Egypt

Few historical monuments in the world have been celebrated like the Egyptian Great Sphinx. For over four millennia, it has been towering imperiously above the Giza desert, contemplating the passage of time and listening to the wishes, promises and desires of the people.

The monument’s history begins shortly after the death of the great Pharaoh Khufu, when Khafra ascended the throne. The building of a pyramid was a lifetime achievement, which started as soon as the new Pharaoh undertook his duties.

Khafra decided to build his funerary monument on the site where his predecessor had erected his own, and the reason was that there was a leftover lump of rock on the site, about two hundred metres long and over twenty metres tall. The palace architects advised the new Pharaoh that it was much more cost-effective to work the stone there than to move it elsewhere. As a result, adding limestone where necessary, the stone was carved into a crouching lion with a human head, whose face bore Khafra’s features. The Great Sphinx’s dimensions are still impressive: 57 metres long, 20.10 metres tall, a face 4.10 metres wide. Its nose is 1.37 metres long and its ears, 1.70 metres. Contrary to the Greek Sphinx, the Egyptian one is male and symbolises the implacable way a Pharaoh deals with his enemies, trampling them underfoot and rending them with its claws. What is unique about this wonder of Egyptian architecture is that, over time, the monument itself was deified.

A thousand years after its construction, during the 18th Dynasty, it had Sun God properties attributed to it. The Sphinx had lost its connection to Khafra and was considered an avatar of Hor-em-akhet. A few decades later, it was linked to the war god Maahes, who was of foreign origin. It had become a new deity, upholding its own values. At the time, apart from few royal favourites, the common people could not enter temples. The Sphinx, unlike other monuments, was not hidden in a temple’s sanctuary but visible to all. Consequently, the faithful pilgrims could gather at the monument and deposit against the walls of the enclosure the little stone stelae on which they had etched their prayers and requests.

The common people of Egypt invested the monument with the property of protector of the weak and defenceless. Several stelae salvaged by archaeologists depict men and women standing, kneeling or lying prone in worship, offering gifts, flowers and ex-votos to the Sphinx. The pilgrims asked for nothing more than what common people ask for today: strength, health, wisdom, longevity, a peaceful old age and a good burial…

“Grant me a good burial at the end of my old age, help me reach the necropolis of the chosen, like all the righteous… Grant me wisdom, grace and love… Grant me sight in the darkness you create, light my eyes…”, such are the wishes that archaeologists decipher today.

The Sphinx, whose age by now is over 4,660 years, had managed to rise, from a symbol of strength and simple guardian of Khafra’s remains, to member of the Egyptian pantheon. It had become a deity with its own cultural tradition, its own myths and legends, embodying values similar to those represented by other well-known gods who had been worshipped for centuries before.

© Dimitris Kambourakis 2003, All Rights Reserved
Translation from the Greek © M.A.K. 2008, All Rights Reserved

A Drop of History 131

One, sweet, coming up
The fascinating adventures of coffee

Augusto Fausto Nairone, in a book published in Rome in 1671, is the first author to make reference to the history of the most famous beverage in the world, coffee. He recounts the following Arabian legend: “A goatherd who tended the flocks of a monastery on the Red Sea saw his goats eat the fruit of a strange bush and then act like crazy. They would not sleep at night; instead, they leaped and capered all over the cliffs, incredibly alert. The abbot went to the area, picked some fruit, boiled them and drank the disgusting, bitter broth. He felt strangely rejuvenated, his mind clear and lucid, but he could not sleep. All the monks in the monastery started drinking the same beverage in order to remain alert, and so it spread all over Arabia.”

Coffee was a luxury item, but it also sparked a great deal of conflict. The enlightened minds of the Islamic world considered coffee a blessing, because it kept them awake for more study. On the contrary, religious fundamentalists demanded it be banned, because Allah had created night so that people would rest. If he wanted them awake, he would have created eternal day – or so they claimed. Fanatics are always the same, in all religions and times. Ah well…

So, coffee had conquered the Near and Middle East, but it was unknown in Europe until 1683. That was when the Turkish army was shattered before the walls of Vienna and, in their hasty retreat, left their ammunition and provisions behind. Those provisions included five hundred sacks of coffee beans. The soldiers who came out beyond the walls thought they were camel fodder and decided to burn them, but a Pole, who had lived in the East and knew what they were, requested the load of coffee as his share of the loot. The rest gave it, laughing at him.

However, the Pole proceeded to create a fortune for himself. He carted the coffee into the city and opened the first coffee shop in Europe. He even started serving coffee prepared his own way: finely ground, boiled in water, flavoured with honey and milk. He called it “Viennese coffee” and served it in small cups with crescent-shaped pastries, to commemorate the Ottomans’ defeat. That was history in the making. Café Viennois is still being drunk today, and croissants are still made in the same shape. From Vienna, coffee spread all over Europe. The only countries where it was not an instant success were Germany, where beer ruled supreme, and Britain, where tea was the beverage of choice.

In France, which was guild heaven, the arrival of coffee triggered great unrest. It was not clear how it should be classified, and consequently which guild would handle its distribution. It was claimed by the guild of pharmacists, because it was a stimulant and sleep suppressant, therefore it had to be considered a medicine. Various travellers in the East mentioned coffee as a pleasant, refreshing beverage, so the guild of hoteliers intervened and laid claim to the right to maintain coffee shops. That brought on vehement objections by the guild of tavern keepers, with the simple reasoning that their interests were being harmed, as customers, instead of drinking wine in taverns, would prefer coffee in coffee houses.

Coffee became fashionable by the end of the 17th century, although it was insanely expensive. Sweetening it with sugar dates from those times, since aristocratic ladies found its bitterness unpalatable. By the turn of the century, the whole of France wanted coffee but its price was exorbitant, because the monopoly was zealously guarded by the Dutch. In 1714, the mayor of Amsterdam presented King Louis XIV, the Sun King, with a coffee bush, sure that it would be useless in Paris. That proved right. It was planted in a greenhouse in Versailles, but despite the care lavished on it, it remained moribund and barren.

Naturalists struggled for years, until a simple naval officer, Gabriel DeClieu, had the brilliantly simple idea to replant the bush in a tropical climate, which might help restore its growth, that had been stunted by the Parisian cold. He took a cutting to Martinique, which was a French colony, planted it there, and the resulting bush grew and gave plenty of fruit. He distributed the seeds to the locals, who planted them, and within five years, France was growing all its own coffee, whose price had dropped spectacularly.

In the 20th century, the worldwide coffee work cycle was worth over 100 billion dollars a year. Multinationals took over production, distribution, manufacture, advertising, and price regulation. Centroamerican and African countries leaped from poverty to wealth and back, following the stock prices in Wall Street. There have been wars, dictatorships, population mobilisations, evacuations of huge areas, all for coffee, all against the backdrop of exploitation of the countries and people of the Third World. It is estimated that today, out of the sum that a Western household pays to buy coffee, only 2.5% goes to the country that produces it, and out of this meagre percentage, only 1% is reinvested in the country. The remaining 97.5% to 99% goes into the coffers of middlemen and gluttonous multinationals.

Damn you, history, damn you, international system; why does even the mouthful of coffee I drink in the morning have to be a tool of exploitation, while it has such a fascinating history?

© Dimitris Kambourakis 2003, All Rights Reserved
Translation from the Greek © M.A.K. 2008, All Rights Reserved

A Drop of History 130

The history of taxes
A nuisance rising to a fine art through the ages

Filing tax returns has always been a nightmare for the common citizen. All those numbers, the paperwork, the documents and certificates, all they manage to cause is headache and terror. Would it make you feel better to know that taxation has always been the state’s favourite way of effortless fundraising throughout history?

Of course, we know that taxation is not a fruit of the present age, but the antiquity of the idea itself is impressive. The first written mention of taxes we have is in the Old Testament, where Joseph advises the Pharaoh to demand one-fifth of the crops while they are plentiful. Taxation existed in ancient Greece as well; Peisistratos demanded one-twentieth of the rich Athenians’ income. Aristophanes lampooned that policy in his comedy Frogs, to the mirth of the audience. In Rome, Caligula imposed a tax on porters, equalling one-eighth of their daily wage. In China, Emperor Han Wudi collected 2% of every merchant’s profits and, a thousand years later, the Tang dynasty emperors taxed each family for four or five hundred copper pieces.

The actual list would be endless, since all organised states had developed their own taxing policies. Most of the times, though, such policies were unfair and, despite the state’s initial efforts to impose them only on the wealthy, those managed, one way or another, to escape the state’s clutches and leave the poor behind to get the chestnuts out of the fire.

The first true tax reform was attempted after the French Revolution. Before that, France had established tithing; all farmers had to hand over 10% of their crops to the state coffers. After the revolution, that sum was abandoned and the new rulers tried for the first time to legislate objective taxation, respective to the volume of assets owned.

Around the same time, in Britain, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger formulated for the first time the concept of personal income tax. Britain was preparing to go to war against Napoleon at the time, and Pitt thought of that measure in order to bolster military capital. Personal tax would be graduated, depending on the income of each British citizen. The idea was applauded by other politicians, and the Parliament voted almost unanimously in favour of the famous “Income Tax”, in 1798. The term would create an entire school of economics and contribute to the formation of whole taxing systems.

According to the law, British citizens with an income over £200 would have to hand over 10%. The percentage was lower for incomes between £60-200, and incomes below £60 were considered tax exempt. Due to the particular measure, several citizens who wanted to avoid paying taxes declared incomes on the cusp of exemption. There are several tax return documents from that period declaring an income of £59 s19.

The personal income tax has been abolished and reinstated several times over the last couple of centuries. It was reinstated in 1842 by Robert Peel, marked “temporary”, in order to ensure the balance of the budget. It is nominally “temporary” until today, but its levying has never stopped.

Just so as you do not believe that such things happen only in Greece.

© Dimitris Kambourakis 2003, All Rights Reserved
Translation from the Greek © M.A.K. 2008, All Rights Reserved