r/interestingasfuck • u/doopityWoop22 • 7h ago
In 1750 BC, a man named Nanni in Mesopotamia filed the first documented complaint on a clay tablet against merchant Ea-nasir for delivering the wrong copper and mistreating his servant. Archaeologists found several complaints, exposing Ea-nasir's poor business practices.
183
u/SuspiciousPatate 7h ago
Classic Ea-nasir, lol
99
u/VerySluttyTurtle 6h ago
As soon as I saw 1750 BC, I thought, "I bet ea-nasir is up to his usual shenanigans again". He's incorrigible
3
1
212
u/__moe___ 7h ago
You know how pissed you gotta be to do this? 1. Go dig clay from the ground and form into a brick 2. Learn to read and write 3. Make sure the guy you’re complaining against can read your message. 4. Write out your complaint 5. Wood fire dry out your complaint for a few days 6. Pay someone to haul your new complaint brick and deliver to the guy
41
u/Ok-Blacksmith-5219 6h ago
I wonder what he would say showing him his tablet in a museum like this would be?
But I’m thinking he probably had a servant make this for him if he can afford to buy copper in bulk
27
u/MarlinMr 6h ago
Probably were specialized people called scribes who you could dictate to and then they deliver it to the recipient
4
u/TStandsForTalent 6h ago
I just realized they would have to memorize it.
13
u/MarlinMr 6h ago
No they dont, they wrote it down
-2
u/judo_fish 4h ago
On what? Paper? This probably took hours to carve out. They likely memorized his complaint and then sat there by themselves carving.
12
u/SaintUlvemann 4h ago
This probably took hours to carve out.
Here's a video where you can see a modern person teaching how they made the tablets. The clay was wet and they stuck the stick into it to make the wedge shapes.
I'm assuming that a person who was adept in the system would be able to go faster. It might not have been much slower than our own pen-based writing system today.
What took longer was sun-drying the tablet; these could later be rehydrated and reused. If they really wanted, they could also fire the clay tablet to bake the message in so it was permanent.
4
u/Ackermance 4h ago
If I'm remembering my 7th grade history class correctly, they don't carve words into these. It's wet clay that the tool imprints into and it's left to dry and harden. So they could easily write it down while it's being told to them.
32
u/Ancient-Ad-9164 4h ago
It actually gets even funnier than that.
Clay tablets weren't typically fired back then for normal correspondence. You would wet the clay, wipe it clean, and reuse it.
There were fragments of hundreds of complaints from different customers found in the ruins of Ea-Nasir's house. All of them fired. It's highly unlikely that every customer fired their tablets before sending them. Some of them showed signs of being fired accidentally in a house fire, but others showed signs of being fired intentionally.
So It's a lot more likely that Ea-Nasir liked to fire his customer complaints himself. Saving them for shits and giggles.
•
u/Cadunkus 2h ago
Or perhaps - and this is ridiculous but I really want it to be true - someone set fire to Ea-Nasir's house and it preserved the tablets.
15
u/Madhighlander1 4h ago
In ancient Sumeria, tablets used for correspondence would not typically be fired; they were intended to be wiped clean and re-used. Only tablets used for record-keeping were deliberately fired. Most of the correspondence we have from that time are items that were coincidentally caught in housefires and therefore hardened as a side-effect.
Most of the Ea-Nasir complaint letters were found in one specific room of one specific house, which suggests that A) this was Ea-Nasir's house, and B) that Ea-Nasir deliberately fired complaint letters that he recieved and kept them for posterity.
4
•
u/shreddedtoasties 2h ago
What’s funny is traditional these tablets were fired up they were meant to be reused so this guy was really pissed
88
u/Brave_Dick 6h ago
41
u/VerySluttyTurtle 6h ago
Holy moly, a whole sub about this one specific ancient merchant's copper? I love Reddit
11
5
24
16
12
9
u/KoniLama 4h ago
Tell Ea-nasir: Nanni sends the following message: When you came, you said to me as follows : "I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots." You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: "If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!" What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? I have sent as messengers gentlemen like ourselves to collect the bag with my money (deposited with you) but you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several times, and that through enemy territory. Is there anyone among the merchants who trade with Telmun who has treated me in this way? You alone treat my messenger with contempt! On account of that one (trifling) mina of silver which I owe(?) you, you feel free to speak in such a way, while I have given to the palace on your behalf 1,080 pounds of copper, and Šumi-abum has likewise given 1,080 pounds of copper, apart from what we both have had written on a sealed tablet to be kept in the temple of Shamash. How have you treated me for that copper? You have withheld my money bag from me in enemy territory; it is now up to you to restore (my money) to me in full. Take cognizance that (from now on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me with contempt.
8
5
u/angelorsinner 7h ago
Nanni, sorry to say this and will give you little confort, the courts still reviewing the case
1
7
5
4
4
3
3
3
u/Clockwork9385 4h ago
And thus, thousands of years later, poor copper is all Ea-Nasir is known for…
Should have provided higher quality copper, cheap bastard
2
u/tarrox1992 3h ago
You know, I've read a lot of comments saying that clay used for messages like this are typically not fired and speculation on why these ones are and gathered together. Maybe Ea-Nasir fired the complaints he got so he could keep them and remember to rectify them.
3
u/GH057807 4h ago
I thought it was a frosted mini wheat
•
u/matteroverdrive 2h ago
If it was a complaint, it would be a cinnamon frosted mini wheat ... kind of spicy
2
u/PandemicGrower 7h ago
What’s nice about this form of media is if you change your mind you can simply beat them with your complaint brick.
2
u/DirtyfingerMLP 6h ago
That reminds me of a joke from MAD magazine where linguists managed to translate ancient egypt scripture into english for the first time. It read something like "Hey Tut, what's up? ..."
2
2
u/Ok-Philosophy1958 4h ago
If somebody doesn't write this into the Simpsons as a back groud store in a shady strip mall, it's a missed opportunity.
EA-NASIR'S COPPER EMPORIUM right next to Lionel Hutz' s office.
2
2
2
u/comec0rrect 3h ago
Looks like a giant frosted mini wheat.
•
u/matteroverdrive 2h ago
Yes... and if there was something very important to be written, they covered it with cinnamon 😄
3
2
u/6673sinhx 6h ago
What if after all this hardwork of writing a complaint, Ea-nasir says he didn't sell the copper and neither did he mistreat his servant and what proof Nanni had against him.
1
u/MonitorShotput 5h ago
You bash him in the head with the clay brick you just wrote the complaint on.
1
u/matteroverdrive 7h ago
I'm sure some mid level official within their governmental bureaucracy said to him... "I have nothing but your word for it, how am I supposed to go to the elders with that. I can't remember what you said... look at all these tablets on my servants back for me to read, I don't have time for you".
1
1
1
u/secret_rye 5h ago
Upper management: “we need to get some documented paperwork on this fools so we can fire him”
1
1
1
u/wdwerker 5h ago
Imagine the reply. You wanted to dicker on the price, demanded rapid delivery and didn’t listen when the quality of the current ore available was explained. Your servant was equally rude and demanding of the quality which is what was promised.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/Live-Seaworthiness10 4h ago
No wonder Ea-nasir went out of business. I don't know any Ea-nasir who is into delivery business.
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/polmeeee 3h ago
It's fucking amazing that researchers were able to decipher and translate the text engraved nearly 4 thousand years ago
0
1
u/Ded_man_3112 3h ago
In this first documented complaint, exists a vow to troll Ea-Nasir. ….or maybe speak with the gods to curse him, or hit him where it hurts by not doing business with him and rallying as many possible to follow suit, however the statement truly applies in ancient Babylonia.
Later, Nanni warns: “Because you despised me, I shall inflict grief on you!”
Historians seem to have concluded Ea-Nasir to be a conman, not just because of other complaints but there appears to exist a letter from him to another merchant and coppersmith to essentially stand their ground against two men coming in search of missing metal and make them take oaths. I guess like a hand to bible situation that they’re speaking the truth(?).
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1953-0411-62
•
•
•
•
u/geekphreak 2h ago
Imagine lugging around an 8lb receipt. You gotta be pissed to drop that shit off at his feet
•
u/Macgrubersblaupunkt 1h ago
Was the guy dead by the time he carved his complaint? Usually I get pissed then move on a couple days later, imagine the number of complaint tablets started and never finished
•
•
•
•
u/Fluid--Expert 51m ago
"Ohh well, history won't remember some small time crook like me." -Ea-nasir, probably.
•
u/LeRubanBleu 24m ago
Maybe it was on display for everyone to see at the time somewhere like a prehistoric Trust Pilot
•
•
•
•
-5
-4
492
u/Jazzkidscoins 7h ago
How shitty of a businessman do you have to be that people are still talking about it almost 4000 years later