Complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir

Complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir
Tablet on display in the British Museum
Material	Clay
Height	11.6 cm (4.6 in)
Width	5 cm (2.0 in)
Created	c. 1750 BC
Present location	British Museum, London

The complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir (UET V 81)[1] is a clay tablet that was sent to the ancient city-state Ur, written c. 1750 BCE. The tablet, measuring 11.6 cm high and 5 cm wide, documents a transaction in which Ea-nāṣir,[a] a trader, allegedly sold sub-standard copper to a customer named Nanni. Nanni, dissatisfied with the quality, wrote a cuneiform complaint addressing the poor service and mistreatment of his servant.

Discovered by Sir Leonard Woolley in Ur, it is currently kept in the British Museum. Written in Akkadian cuneiform, this tablet is recognized as the "Oldest Customer Complaint" by Guinness World Records. From 2015 onwards, the tablet's content and Ea-nāṣir in particular gained popularity as an internet meme, due to its modern-sounding nature of dissatisfaction with goods.[2][3][4]

Description

The tablet is 11.6 centimetres (4+9⁄16 in) high, 5 cm (1+15⁄16 in) wide, 2.6 cm (1 in) thick, and slightly damaged.[5]

Content

A transcription of the text on the obverse, reverse, and left edge of the tablet[6]

The tablet details that Ea-nāṣir travelled to Dilmun to buy copper and returned to sell it in Mesopotamia. On one particular occasion, he had agreed to sell copper ingots to Nanni. Nanni sent his servant with the money to complete the transaction.[7] The copper was considered by Nanni to be sub-standard[8] and was not accepted.

In response, Nanni produced the cuneiform letter for delivery to Ea-nāṣir. Inscribed on it is a complaint to Ea-nāṣir about a copper delivery of the incorrect grade and issues with another delivery;[5] Nanni also complained that his servant (who handled the transaction) had been treated rudely. He stated that, at the time of writing, he had not accepted the copper, but had paid for it.

Ea-nāṣir was part of a group of traders called alik Tilmun, or "Dilmun traders". He is known from other texts to have been active in the 11th and 19th regnal years of the Larsa ruler Rim-Sîn I.[9]

Acquisition

Illustration of the interior of an old Babylonian house found in the ruins of Ur, which may have been the residence of Ea-nāṣir

The tablet was discovered and acquired by Sir Leonard Woolley, leading a joint expedition of the University of Pennsylvania and the British Museum from 1922 to 1934 in the Sumerian city of Ur.[5][10]

Translations

A. Leo Oppenheim translated several of the tablet's lines in a 1954 article for Journal of the American Oriental Society.[11] An English language translation of the tablet was made by W. F. Leemans [nl] in 1960;[12] Leemans' translation incorporated these lines which Oppenheim had translated as well as some input from Fritz Rudolf Kraus [de] on the meaning of a few lines.[13] Oppenheim published a full translation of the tablet himself in 1967,[8] unaware of any other translations of this tablet.[14] A translation inspired by that of Marc Van de Mieroop sent in a personal communication to Steven J. Garfinkle was published in 2010;[15] a book review by Walter Farber [de] noted that this translation "is not always true to details".[16] I. M. Diakonoff published a translation into Russian in 1990.[17]

Other tablets

Other tablets have been found in the ruins believed to be Ea-nāṣir's dwelling. These include a letter from a man named Arbituram who complained he had not received his copper yet, while another said he was tired of receiving bad copper.[18][19]

Legacy

The complaint tablet has become an internet meme due to its seemingly anachronistic nature.[2][18][20]

It has been recognized by the Guinness World Records as the "Oldest Customer Complaint".[21]

Notes

1. Akkadian: 𒂍𒀀𒈾𒍢𒅕, lit. 'Ea is (his) warden', reconstructed pronunciation: /ˈe.a ˈna:t͡sʼiʁ/

References

1. Figulla, H. H.; Martin, W. J., eds. (1953). Letters and Business Documents of the Old Babylonian Period. Ur Excavations: Texts. Vol. V. London: British Museum Press. p. 5, Pl. XIV.
2. "The Legend of Ea-Nāsir: how a Babylonian businessman became an internet meme". UCL Institute of Archaeology. 8 December 2022. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
3. Kern, Emily (3 November 2021). "The Radical Promise of Human History". Boston Review.
4. Brinkley, Liv (17 March 2022). "The World's Oldest Customer Complaint Is Almost 4000 Years Old". Grunge.
5. "tablet". British Museum. object W 1953-0411-71.
6. "UET 5, 0081 (P414985)". CDLI. Retrieved 23 October 2023.
7. Crawford, Harriet (July 2015). "Sir Leonard Woolley and Ur of the Chaldees". The Bible and Interpretation. University of Arizona.
8. Oppenheim (1967), pp. 82–83.
9. Konstantopoulos, Gina (2021). "Gods in the Margins: Religion, Kingship, and the Fictionalized Frontier". In Konstantopoulos, Gina; Zaia, Shana (eds.). As Above, So Below. Penn State University Press. pp. 3–27. doi:10.1515/9781646021536-003. ISBN 978-1-64602-153-6.
10. "Sir Leonard Woolley". Biography. British Museum. Collections online.
11. Leemans (1960), p. 39 n. 1, citing Oppenheim (1954), pp. 9ff.
12. Leemans (1960), pp. 39–40.
13. Leemans (1960), p. 39 n. 1.
14. Oppenheim (1967), p. 200.
15. Garfinkle (2010), p. 198, 198 n. 39.
16. Farber (2012), p. 321.
17. Diakonoff (1990), p. 116.
18. Killgrove, Kristina (11 May 2018). "Meet the worst businessman of the 18th century BCE". Forbes. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
19. Leemans (1960), pp. 48–54.
20. Podany (2022), pp. 1–2.
21. "Complaint Tablet To Ea-Nasir - World's Oldest Complaint Letter". Guinness World Records. Retrieved 5 April 2023.

Bibliography

• Baraniuk, Chris (2 March 2015). "Ancient customer-feedback technology lasts millennia". New Scientist. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
• Diakonoff, I. M. (1990). Купец, мореплаватель, литейных дел мастер [A Merchant, Seafarer, and Copper Founder]. Люди города Ура [People of the City of Ur] (in Russian). Moscow: Akademija Nauk. pp. 97–125. ISBN 978-5-02-016568-7.
• Farber, Walter (April–June 2012). "Review: Opening the Tablet Box: Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Benjamin R. Foster". Review of Books. Journal of the American Oriental Society. 132 (2): 319–321. doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.132.2.0319.
• Garfinkle, Steven J. (2010). "Merchants and State Formation in Early Mesopotamia". In Melville, Sarah; Slotsky, Alice (eds.). Opening the Tablet Box: Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Benjamin R. Foster. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East. Vol. 42. Leiden: Brill. pp. 197–199. doi:10.1163/9789004186569_012. ISBN 978-90-04-18652-1.
• Kruszelnicki, K.S. (24 March 2015). "The oldest known complaint letter". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
• Kalinauskas, Nadine (10 March 2015). "Clay tablet with oldest recorded customer-service complaint on display at the British Museum". Yahoo News. Canada.
• McNally, Victoria (27 February 2015). "Ancient Babylonians were just like us: Complained about poor service from retailers". The Mary Sue.
• Leemans, W. F. (1960). "Ur: Time of Rim-Sin". Foreign Trade in the Old Babylonian Period as Revealed by Texts from Southern Mesopotamia. Studia et Documenta ad Iura Orientis Antiqui Pertinentia. Vol. 6. Leiden: Brill. pp. 36–55. LCCN a61001806.
• Oppenheim, A. L. (1954). "The Seafaring Merchants of Ur". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 74 (1): 6–17. doi:10.2307/595475. JSTOR 595475. S2CID 163967835.
• Oppenheim, A. Leo, ed. (1967). "Old Babylonian Letters: Trade". Letters From Mesopotamia: Official, Business and Private Letters on Clay Tablets from Two Millennia. The Oriental Institute. University of Chicago Press. pp. 82–84. LCCN 67020576.
• Rice, Michael (1994). "The Merchants of Dilmun: Ea-Nasir, the Dilmun Merchant". The Archaeology of the Arabian Gulf. The experience of archaeology. London: Routledge. pp. 276–280. ISBN 978-0-415-03268-1.
• Wheaton, Oliver (5 March 2015). "Believe it or not, this carving is actually a 3,750 year-old customer service complaint". Metro.
• Podany, Amanda H. (2022). "Introduction". Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 1–10. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190059040.003.0021. ISBN 978-0-19-005904-0.
• Woolley, Leonard; Mallowan, Max (1976). "Detailed Description of the Private Houses: The AH Site: Old Street". The Old Babylonian Period. Ur Excavations. Vol. VII. London: British museum publ. pp. 123–125. ISBN 978-0-7141-1087-5.

External links

• "British Museum Object". British Museum. British Museum. BM 131236. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
• "UET 5, 0081". Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. University of California, Los Angeles. CDLI no. P414985. Retrieved 28 September 2022.
• "16814A | 1953,0411.71". UrOnline - The Digital Resource for the Excavation of Ur. The British Museum. Retrieved 28 September 2022.
• "UET 5 81 [BM 131236 = 1953-04-11, 71 = U.16814a]". Archibab. Collège de France. Retrieved 28 September 2022.
• 3D scan of the tablet
• Munroe, Randall (3 April 2023). "My Favorite Things". xkcd.