5 May 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

World’s Oldest Customer Complaint “at 3800 Years Old”

When we are not satisfied with the product we receive, what almost all of us do is complain about the product. We do this sometimes by calling customer service and sometimes by applying to consumer complaint lines. We even announce it to everyone on social media.

It seems that although centuries have passed, people have not changed much. It is clear that our job is easier now, but there were determined people in the past. He carved his complaints on both sides of the clay tablet without feeling cold.

The world’s first known customer complaint was sent from Ur city, southern Mesopotamia about 3,800 years ago. (Tell al-Mukayyar in Iraq today)

The Old Babylonian tablet with inventory number 131236, found in the British museum in London, is a clay tablet from a man named Nanni telling ea-nasir that he complained that copper ore of the wrong quality was delivered and another shipment was misdirected and delayed.

Ea-nasir was a member of Alik Tilmun, a trade guild based in Dilmun. Archaeologists have discovered that he was a prominent copper merchant. Apparently, Ea-nasir was a pretty bad businessman and received lots of complaints from angry customers.

Letter from Nanni to Ea-nasir complaining after a gulf cruise that the wrong grade copper ore was delivered, misdirected, and another delivery delay. Source: British Museum.

The tablet was translated by the Asurologist A. Leo Oppenheim in Letters from Mesopotamia, which was out of print in 1967: The official, Business and Special Letters on Clay Tablates from Two Thousand Years and it was read as follows:

Addressing Ea-nasir, Nanni sends the following message:

When you arrived you said to me: “I will give Gimil-Sin (when it comes) good quality copper ingots.” Then you went but did not do what you promised me. You put in bad ingots before my envoy (Sit-Sin) and said, “If you want to get them, take them; if you don’t want to buy it, go! ” You said.

What are you taking for such a contempt for someone like me? I sent as messengers like ourselves to collect my purse with money (he was deposited with you), but by sending me your empty hand back to me several times and you despise me in enemy territory. Is there anyone among the traders who trade with Telmun who treated me this way? Just be disrespectful to my envoy! Because of a silver mina that I owe you (muttering), you are free to speak like this, I gave 1,080 pounds of copper to the palace in your name and Šumi-abum likewise, except for what we wrote on a sealed tablet to hide in Damascus’s temple, we was give 1,080 kilograms of copper.

How did you treat me for this copper? You hid my money bag from me in enemy territory; It is now up to you to fully restore (my money) to me.

Note that (from now on) I will not accept any non-good quality copper from you. I will select and take the ingots individually in my own garden and exercise my right to be rejected against you because you have insulted me.

– Leo Oppenheim, Letters From Mesopotamia.

This tablet found among the ruins of Ur was bought by the British Museum in 1953.

The tablet is 11.6 centimeters (4.6 inches) high, 5 centimeters (2.0 inches) wide, 2.6 centimeters (1.0 inches) thick, and slightly damaged. Translated from Akkadian.

Related Articles

Manot Cave yielded evidence for ritualistic gathering 35,000 years ago, the earliest on the Asian continent

13 January 2025

13 January 2025

Archaeological research at the Manot Cave in what is now the Galilee in northern Israel has uncovered evidence of ritualistic...

Remains of 240 people found beneath Ocky White department store in Wales

13 October 2022

13 October 2022

Archaeologists found skeletal remains of over more than 240 people, from beneath a former department store in Pembrokeshire in Wales,...

The Half of the Rare Oil Lamp Found in Jerusalem May be in Budapest

9 May 2021

9 May 2021

We had recently reported on a grotesque lamp found in Jerusalem. The other half of the oil lamp, which is...

In Germany, volunteers unearthed the largest hoard of Slavic coins to date and bronze-age seven swords

29 November 2023

29 November 2023

Volunteer archaeologists found bronze age seven swords and from the 11th century 6000 silver coins in the northeastern German state...

Archaeologists have unearthed a trove of artifacts at the necropolis of Saqqara

9 June 2022

9 June 2022

Archaeologists at the necropolis of Saqqara, near Cairo, have discovered a cache of 250 complete mummies in painted wooden sarcophagi...

6,000-Year-Old Settlement Was home to Europe’s first megalithic monument makers

22 February 2023

22 February 2023

Archaeologists in France unearthed the remains of a series of wooden buildings within a defensive enclosure that were built at...

Apocalypse Ship of the Vikings

26 April 2021

26 April 2021

Researchers discovered a stone boat made by Vikings and surprising gifts inside a cave in Iceland. Aside from the cave,...

The Lion of Venice was Made in China: : Isotopic Analyses and Stylistic Comparisons Prove it

16 September 2024

16 September 2024

Recent scientific studies have revealed that the famous bronze-winged lion above one of the two columns in Piazzetta San Marco,...

An architectural gem from the medieval monastery of Posa, Germany

26 July 2023

26 July 2023

Archaeological excavations have been taking place on the Posaer Berg (Posa Hill) near Zeitz (Burgenland) every year since 2017. They...

A new study attributes Japanese, Korean and Turkish languages all to a common ancestor in northeastern China

11 November 2021

11 November 2021

According to a new study, modern languages ranging from Japanese and Korean to Turkish and Mongolian may have had a...

Well-Preserved Wooden Houses Over 2,000 Years Old Discovered in Zhejiang, China

15 March 2025

15 March 2025

In a remarkable archaeological find, researchers in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, China, have uncovered exceptionally well-preserved wooden houses dating back over...

Lead Glass Jewelry was Mass-Produced in Medieval Poland from Local Raw Material

7 April 2025

7 April 2025

Recent archaeological research has unveiled significant insights into the mass production of lead glass jewelry in medieval Poland, confirming that...

Ice Age turtle finds near Magdeburg point to canned food from the Stone Age

2 May 2024

2 May 2024

Experts have recovered around 50,000-year-old turtle shell fragments from the Barleben-Adamsee gravel pit near Magdeburg. The turtles could have been...

An Egyptian Tomb Decorated with Magic Snake Spells Discovered

9 November 2023

9 November 2023

During excavations at Abusir, between Giza and Saqqara, archaeologists at the Czech Institute of Egyptology (CIE) found an ancient tomb...

Researchers believe mass immigration to Orkney during the Bronze Age was mostly led by women

8 February 2022

8 February 2022

Researchers believe mass immigration to Orkney during the Bronze Age was mostly led by women.  Mass migration to Orkney during...