3 min read

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23 hours ago

Imagine the sting of receiving a scathing one-star review. Now imagine that review being preserved for nearly four millennia — and laughed at by people across the internet. That, in essence, is the legacy of Ea-Nasir, a copper merchant in the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur.

As a member of the merchant class, Ea-Nasir’s livelihood depended on his reputation. In a time when word of mouth and clay tablets were the pillars of commerce, delivering subpar goods could have dire consequences. Ea-Nasir had traveled to Dilmun (modern-day Bahrain) to obtain copper, possibly a familiar trade route he had taken many times. Upon his return to Ur, he sold the copper ingots to a man named Nanni.

We know little about Nanni himself, but we do know this: he was furious. So much so that he composed what is now considered the world’s oldest recorded customer complaint. Inscribed in cuneiform on a clay tablet, the letter was directed not solely at the quality of the copper, which was apparently of appallingly poor standard, but also at the way Ea-Nasir had treated Nanni’s servant.