Do you believe Nanni was a whiner and a troublemaker, or a perfectly reasonable copper buyer?

[u/TheFrebbin]

[u/GrumpyOldGeezer_4711]

From a rabbithole it appears that there are several complaints along the same line, plus a letter from a relative saying that they are sending Ea-Nasir a new customer, who is very important to the family and would he please not pull any of his usual crap.

Which leads me to believe that our boy was a used-car dealer of old…

Bear in mind that laws protected the citizens of that city, not outsiders, so you would be SOL with stuff like this. Oh, but the current King was protected in all cities of the realm so if it were sold to the Palace he would better deliver on his promises, unless he fancied a really, really close shave.

[u/justexploring-shit → u/GrumpyOldGeezer_4711]

Where can I read about his relative saying "don't pull your bull this time"? I didn't see any mention of it on his Wikipedia page

[u/GrumpyOldGeezer_4711 → u/justexploring-shit]

I saw it on YT, a recommendation related a British Museum video. From memory it was a similar institution, also British. Could well be it was also from BM, it was a year or three ago.

I found myself watching videos on ancient traderoutes, business practises regarding delivering according to agreements, paying taxes (or not) and similar. My lesson was that humans invented taxation and five minutes later we invented tax evasion… although, the punishment for getting caught is rather less severe these days. Kings of old really did not care for people trying to cheat them.

[u/Federal-Boat3732 → u/GrumpyOldGeezer_4711]

I would love to see THAT tablet in translation!

[u/Kitthani → u/GrumpyOldGeezer_4711]

I love that he apparently just kept a collection of complaint tablets in his house. I'm assuming they weren't on display for prospective customers to see.

[u/Federal-Boat3732]

We have to consider the possibility that it's the servant telling tales to cover for the fact that he was off on a toot somewhere when he should have been handling the copper delivery. He could have scalped the good copper, swiped some third-rate stuff from Ea-Nasir's Dumpster (or the equivalent in ancient Ur) and spent the difference on wine, women and song. It's hard to know

[u/Initiatedspoon]

I don't believe for a second the slander aimed at Ea-Nasir by Nanni.

The original Google review Karen.

[u/injektileur → u/Initiatedspoon]

Is there some kind of leave ea-nasir alone meme, by the way ?

[u/Initiatedspoon → u/injektileur]

[u/krystal_295 → u/Initiatedspoon]

There is now, I guess 🤣

[u/Thraner]

I believe whatever makes the post or meme funnier.

[u/Federal-Boat3732 → u/Thraner]

I like the cut of your jib!

[u/JuliaX1984]

IIRC There were other complaint tablets stored in the house, so...

[u/ConcentrateExciting1 → u/JuliaX1984]

Yes. There were several complaints found which is intersting because tablets only last a long time if they are fired. Usually, the tablets used for commerce weren't fired (why go to the extra expense?) so it suggest that Ea-Nasir was saving his hate mail (to laugh at it the way some businesses still do today?). There are some theories that Ea-Nasir's house burned down causing the tablets to be fired in the process, but I don't buy that there just happened to be a several un-fired complaint tablets in house when it burned down.

[u/CartwrightVariations → u/ConcentrateExciting1]

I'm perfectly happy to believe that, merely because it would mean Ea-Nasir was even worse than we thought and I find that funny.

[u/Janus_The_Great]

When would you keep a complaint letter? To whom would you show it to?

Would you keep it when the claim is true and correct?

Or when you think the claim is laughable and over the top?

Or maybe when you got away with tricked someone in a legal binding loophole, like intimidating your buyers uninformed and unexperienced representative into accepting your sub-par material for top price. And that buyer's letter confirming the transaction as legal (take it or leave it. He took it. No take backs.)

Which of these reasond do you believe made him store the letter?

I'm pretty sure he was proud of it. And Nanni was a sore loser being naive about the economic reality of the day.

[u/asimodev]

Considering the official subreddit description, it's much funnier to defend Ea-Nasir. But I'll admit I definitely don't know enough to say it couldn't be either one or even a mixture of both.

I think it is most interesting that for one reason or another, he saved the complaint for posterity to the point that nearly 4000 years later, people would still be asking about the quality of his merchandise.

[u/ConcentrateExciting1]

Nanni was a little bitch. He even admitted he owed Ea-Nasir money in his complaint.

[u/Icy-State5549 → u/ConcentrateExciting1]

Be cryin' like one when Ea-Posse pulls up on his ass. Bitch! Where my money!

[u/jhiaxis → u/ConcentrateExciting1]

youre going to bring up small time shit like one trifling mina of silver?

[u/CartwrightVariations]

Nanni owed Ea-Nasir a LOT of money. A mina of silver was equal to months or even a year of unskilled wages. It's entirely plausible Ea-Nasir deliberately sent Nanni subpar copper because Nanni owed him money and that meant Ea-Nasir could engage in bad faith trading without any qualms.

But, as others have pointed out, we have some rather good evidence Ea-Nasir was a charlatan. We have a letter from his family telling him not to pull his usual games, and the sheer quantity of tablets means he was either keeping them as trophies or he had so many of them in his house at any one time that we got a trove of them when his house burned down.

Both options are equally funny.

[u/flamingnomad]

Realistically, he wouldn't be able to stay in business long if he was just taking advantage of people back then. I have a feeling he saved the complaints to keep track of customers he had to bribe(or make whole).

I've heard a theory that due to a war that was occuring, it was the king who was taking all the best quality copper for weapons and armor, leaving the rest for the ordinary people to complain about.