Taxes — and the taxman — aren’t modern inventions. In one form or another, taxes have been collected over the centuries and used to fund services (burials), government projects, like the Egyptian pyramids or valuable substances (such as ammonia that was gleaned from — you guessed it — human urine, thanks Vespasian). But the first organized taxation system was actually introduced by our very own grandfathers, the ancient Egyptians, according to National Geographic.

Taxation existed before money even existed. Jumping back to Mesopotamia, citizens paid a tax to bury a body in a grave. It cost “seven kegs of beer, 420 loaves, two bushels of barley, a wool cloak, a goat, and a bed, presumably for the corpse,” according to Oklahoma State historian Tonia Sharlach.

Ancient Egyptian rulers surveyed the land and taxed citizens on what they owned. They would travel around the country to assess the possessions of the populace, which often included ceramics, cattle, and oil, and imposed taxes on them. This became an annual tradition known as Shemsu Hor, or Following of Horus.

We also used tax tech, the Nilometer, which you can visit today. Located on the island of Al-Roda in Manial, it was a structure that was used to tax Egyptians by calculating the yearly flooding of the Nile in relation to the citizen’s harvest. More water means a healthy harvest and higher taxes, and the opposite applies, lower water levels mean taxing the people less.

Then there was the lifelong tax exemption in India — if you could solve the government’s problems. During the Mauryan Empire the government held an annual competition for ideas to solve issues they had. The victor would receive tax amnesty for the rest of their lives. Appealing? Yes. Successful? Not so much. According to Sharlach, the system was inefficient because “nobody would have any incentive to ever solve more than one problem.”

In ancient Rome, ammonia was a valuable commodity derived from human urine and used to fertilize crops, make leather, or even whiten teeth. And like all valuable products, Roman emperor Vespasian figured out how to tax it. Even when his son disapproved of the tax, claiming it was repulsive, he responded “Pecunia non olet” (money does not stink) and we can’t decide how we feel about that.

The gift of tax. The Aztecs financial powerhouses thanks to their complex tax system and meticulous record-keeping. We can even see a version of this tax record through the Matrícula de Tributos, which had pictographs indicating who paid what and to whom that the government collected during their taxation period.

Then there was the beard tax…Yes, that’s right. Apparently close-shaved faces were the height of fashion and modernization in the sixteenth century, and Peter the Great of Russia felt that his nation needed to keep up with the times and pushed for his male citizens to either chop off the fuzz or pay to keep it. In another ploy to discourage growing their beards, he would make the men who paid carry a ‘beard token’ to prove that they’d earned keeping their beard.

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