Ea Nasir traded in copper, a precious resource in the Bronze Age. He sold his copper to customers far and wide. However, his business practices were far from fair. Many tablets from that era show angry letters from customers who received subpar copper. They paid for high-quality metal but got inferior goods instead. Sounds familiar?
A Serial Scammer
Ea Nasir’s shady practices led to many angry clients. A true bronze-age one-star trustpilot business. He had so many complaints that he set aside a room in his house just for storing them. Imagine a room filled with clay tablets, each one a furious letter from a dissatisfied customer. Letters complaining about not receiving copper in time or being tired of receiving bad copper were plentiful. Perhaps he had a sense of pride for all his successful scams. Perhaps the room served less as a complaint management area and more as a trophy room?
Complaint Tablet to Ea-nasir from Nanni 1750BC. British Museum Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
YOU HAVE TREATED ME WITH CONTEMPT!
The most furious customer complaint came from a man named Nanni. Nanni sent his servant to buy copper from Ea Nasir. When the servant returned, the copper was of such poor quality that Nanni was outraged. He wrote a sharp letter to Ea Nasir, demanding better copper or his money back:
“When you came, you said to me as follows: ‘I will give Gimil-Sin fine quality copper ingots.’ You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger and said: ‘If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!’
What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? I have sent messengers to collect the bag with my money but you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several times. ... You alone treat my messenger with contempt! ... It is now up to you to restore me in full.
From now on, I will not accept any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall select the ingots individually in my own yard, because you have treated me with contempt.”
Legacy
Ea Nasir’s story is fascinating because it shows that even thousands of years ago, people faced scams and bad business practices similar to those of today. His house, with its complaint room, is a testament to human nature and the lengths some will go to cheat others. Nanni’s furious complaint is perhaps relatable to some of us, who have had similar bad customer experiences. It is unfortunate that google reviews did not exist back then. Perhaps Nanni would have avoided his unfortunate experience of being treated with so much contempt.