The Oldest Customer Complaint, and the Merchant Who Kept It

About 3,800 years ago, a man named Nanni wrote an angry clay letter to Ea-nasir, a copper merchant of Ur, about bad ingots and a messenger sent away empty-handed. It was found in Ea-nasir's own house, with more letters from unhappy customers. We read what his archive records: copper voyages to Dilmun (Bahrain), silver weighed out as money, fifty small investors, armed escorts, half a ton of copper paid to a palace, and an account short by nearly six tonnes. The letter is retold in our own words; the one short line on screen is from A. Leo Oppenheim's translation (1967). Values are given in silver and in months of a hired man's pay from the laws of Eshnunna and Hammurabi, not modern money, and are rough. The letters show only the customers' side. Images are public domain / CC0 or Creative Commons (credited on screen). Some objects come from other periods or places and are shown as illustrations, with dates on screen. CHAPTERS 0:00 The angry letter 0:30 A city without metal 1:34 Silver on the scale 2:46 Other people's money 4:13 The complaint 6:01 The pile of letters 7:28 Number One Old Street 9:15 The legend 10:27 Worst businessman? SOURCES H. H. Figulla & W. J. Martin, Ur Excavations: Texts V (London, 1953), no. 81 A. L. Oppenheim, "The Seafaring Merchants of Ur", JAOS 74 (1954); Letters from Mesopotamia (Chicago, 1967), pp. 82-83 W. F. Leemans, Foreign Trade in the Old Babylonian Period (Leiden, 1960), pp. 36-56 M. Van De Mieroop, Society and Enterprise in Old Babylonian Ur (Berlin, 1992) B. Fiette, "Les échanges commerciaux entre Ur et Dilmun d'après les archives d'Ea-naṣir", ARCHIBAB 4 (Paris, 2020), pp. 425-444 R. de Boer, edition of UET 5 81, ARCHIBAB database (archibab.fr/T12972) G. Moshenska, "The Legend of Ea-Naṣir", Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 12.1 (2026) L. Woolley & M. Mallowan, Ur Excavations VII: The Old Babylonian Period (1976), pp. 123-125 M. Roaf, "Weights on the Dilmun Standard", Iraq 44 (1982) M. T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (1997) IMAGES The Met Open Access (CC0), object IDs: 326647, 327369, 324125, 322006, 329227, 321706, 329071, 329067, 324831, 321878, 326162, 327300, 324587, 322605, 324133, 322603, 324592, 322483, 327494 Nanni's complaint tablet, BM 131236 · Zunkir · CC BY-SA 4.0 Houses at Ur, c · Matson Collection · Public domain Nanni's complaint tablet on display · Joel Bellviure · CC BY 4.0 Boats off Manama, Bahrain · Ashashyou · CC BY-SA 3.0 Ziggurat of Ur · Alli Khalil · CC BY-SA 4.0 Mashoof in the Iraqi marshes · Hassan Janali, USACE · Public domain Copper adzes from Ur · Zunkir · CC BY-SA 4.0 Pillow lava, Wadi Jizzi, Oman · Lionel Duchoiselle · CC BY-SA 3.0 Al-Ayn tombs, Oman · Esra1993 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Bronze Age gallery, Oman · NationalMuseumOman · CC BY-SA 4.0 Qal'at al-Bahrain · Prof. Mortel · CC BY 2.0 Bahrain mounds, 1918 · Storrs-Fox, Edwin Aubrey · Public domain Royal Mound, A'ali · Melanie Münzner / Think Heritage · CC BY-SA 1.0 Dilmun seal, AO 25245 · Zunkir · CC BY-SA 4.0 Garments for Dilmun, BM 130462 · Zunkir · CC BY-SA 4.0 Dilmun copper tablet, AO 3999 · Zunkir · CC BY-SA 4.0 Weight of Shulgi, AO 22187 · Poulpy · CC BY-SA 3.0 Code of Hammurabi stele · Fred Romero · CC BY 2.0 Two Ur trade tablets · Zunkir · CC BY-SA 4.0 Necklaces from Ur · Zunkir · CC BY-SA 4.0 Barbar temple, Bahrain · O.Mustafin · CC0 Nanni's complaint tablet, side view · Geni · CC BY-SA 4.0 Room walls at Ur · Kaufingdude · CC BY-SA 3.0 Ruins of Ur, c · Matson Collection · Public domain Dilmun seal, A'ali · Zunkir · CC BY-SA 4.0 Hammurabi letter, AO 5420 · Zunkir · CC BY-SA 4.0 Ningal gift list, BM 131290 · Zunkir · CC BY-SA 4.0 Ur from the air · Royal Air Force official · Public domain Restored houses at Ur · Aziz1005 · CC BY 4.0 Goddess plaque from Ur · Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin · CC BY-SA 4.0 Excavated walls at Ur · Alli Khalil · CC BY-SA 4.0 Rim-Sin I foundation figure · Daderot · CC0 Warad-Sin cone from Ur · Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin · CC BY-SA 4.0 Hammurabi relief from Sippar · Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin · CC BY-SA 4.0 Hammurabi year names, AO 7664 · Zunkir · CC BY-SA 4.0 Ziggurat of Ur, c · Matson Collection · Public domain Hili Grand Tomb · SUNILKUMAR NAIR · CC BY-SA 4.0 Beehive tombs, Al-Ayn · Arian Zwegers · CC BY 2.0 Rim-Sin I foundation tablet · Daderot · CC0 Hammurabi letter, AO 8317 · Zunkir · CC BY-SA 4.0 Nanna precinct, Ur, c · Matson Collection · Public domain Narration uses a synthetic voice. #Mesopotamia #History #EaNasir