The oldest complaint we have is about bad copper
A clay tablet from Ur, about 1750 BCE, records a customer named Nanni berating the merchant Ea-nasir for sending low-grade copper.
Established2 min read
The tablet, held by the British Museum, is in Akkadian. Nanni has sent agents, has been treated with contempt, and wants proper ingots. Ea-nasir’s house in Ur contained a stack of similar complaints.
It is among the oldest writing that is recognisably a customer’s letter. Commerce had already learned to disappoint.
Caveats
- ‘Oldest complaint’ means the oldest clearly preserved customer complaint, not the first time a human was annoyed.
Sources
- 1Oppenheim A. L.. Letters from Mesopotamia. University of Chicago Press, 1967.