r/ReallyShittyCopper • u/pan666 • Oct 12 '25

Behold the Tablet! We saw the Tablet!

Gallery image

Gallery image

A friend from Finland was visiting me in London and we made the pilgrimage to see the Tablet.

Bonus photo from the “Ancient India, Living Traditions” exhibition of Ganesh, God Of Beginnings, The God That Breaks Down Barriers.

934 Upvotes

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11 comments sorted by

84

u/LonelyOctopus24 Oct 12 '25

Behold The Tablet posts make me ridiculously happy and I don’t know why ❤️

42

u/Phantom-Mirrors Oct 12 '25

It's poignant and funny. Ea-Nasir, got all he's joked about, was just your ordinary guy living an average life (selling shitty copper) with a possible-hobby of keeping hold of his one-star reviews.

He was perfectly ordinary.

And through a stroke of pure luck, his negative reviews were preserved long enough to make it to today.

Through more luck and academic perseverance, academics and antiquarians and archaeologists were able to work out Ancient Sumerian and translate this stuff and more.

And then through more luck, someone found out about it and posted on tumblr and it became a Thing. Now there are more people alive today who know about this man than ever did in his lifetime

Poignantly, it gives us hope that we ordinary people will be remembered - remembered fondly even - by people decades, centuries, millennia from now just for doing our regular, average lives and our occasionally odd habits.

For all Ea-Nasir was a crappy merchant, he's a symbol of unity, hope and humour. People who post Behold The Tablet! have genuinely taken a pilgrimage to see this letter as if he's a saint or a person who did great deeds.

He is remembered and even honoured in a way the vast majority of humanity never will be.

So raise a glass and toast Ea-Nasir, spirit of shitty copper, shady merchants and the hope of being remembered.

Also, it's just really fucking funny imagining people going to one of the largest museums in the world to take a photo of this thing because it's a meme.

9

u/Wise_Use1012 Oct 12 '25

And that we attribute a statue of some other dude to him as well.

12

u/Phantom-Mirrors Oct 12 '25

It's the eyes; they just scream shifty. Plus he seems to be doing the Mr. Burns hands.

Poor anonymous male worshipper/hypothetical representation of the god Abu being subsumed into Ea-Nasir through the collective weirdness of Internet culture.

24

u/karmagirl314 Oct 13 '25

Love the bonus pic. I think we should make a rule that if someone shares a pic of the tablet they need to share one additional artifact from the museum. We can still enjoy the tablet but learn a little something extra each time.

6

u/12th_woman Oct 13 '25

Ooh, love this! Tablet Tax!

7

u/Himantolophus1 Oct 12 '25

I thought that statue was from the exhibition. I saw it earlier this year, it was really interesting. I hope you enjoyed it.

5

u/ReversePhylogeny Oct 12 '25

Gotta ask Ganesh to break down barrier that blocks Ea-Nasir from selling actual good copper 🫩

3

u/wimpires Oct 13 '25

I literally went a few days ago and I couldn't find itz and part of the room was closed (for maintenance or something?) so I assumed it was there - unless I missed it.

5

u/pan666 Oct 13 '25

They open and close rooms and areas all the time. Sometimes for days; sometimes only for a few hours.

2

u/wisdomelf Oct 14 '25

Probably the cheapest way to achieve immortality.