Ancient graves reveal taxes’ sharp bite nearly 3,000 years ago Buried items show that the poor got poorer as the Assyrian empire and its bureaucracy swelled. Buried items show that the poor got poorer as the Assyrian empire and its bureaucracy swelled.

Archaeologist Petra Creamer counted the grave goods in more than 1,000 excavated burial sites in the #AssyrianEmpire and found that the wealth gap between rich and poor widened significantly as the empire grew. #History #MoreThingsChangeMoreTheyStayTheSame www.nature.com/articles/d41...