There’s a
lot to say about the human race and how we've changed over thousands of years,
but there’s one thing that we have always been throughout history: committed to
complaining. The oldest complaint known to history is to be found in a
cuneiform tablet from ancient Mesopotamia.
The
archaeological piece, which dates back to roughly 1750 BCE was found in the
ancient city of Ur, famous for its impressive Ziggurat, located now in modern
day Iraq. The tablet is a message of complaint from a man named Nanni to a
supplier known as Ea-nasir. In fact, there are multiple complaints in the
letter. Ea-nasir apparently delivered the wrong grade of copper after his
Persian gulf voyage to collect the metal. He’s also responsible for the
misdirection and delays in a further delivery. And to top it all off, he was
rude to the servants Nanni sent to collect the delivery. Sound familiar?
“What do you
take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt?" Nanni
demands, thanks to a translation of the letter from distinguished Assyriologist
Leo Oppenheim’s Letters from Mesopotamia. "I have sent as messengers
gentlemen like ourselves to collect the bag with my money (deposited with you)
but you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several
times, and that through enemy territory.”
(He's not
done yet.)
“Is there
anyone among the merchants who trade with Telmun who has treated me in this
way? You alone treat my messenger with contempt!”
The table is
part of the permanent collection of the British Museum but it is not on
display. The language on the tablet is Akkadian, the earliest known Semitic
language (languages that originate from the Middle East, including Hebrew,
Arabic, and Aramaic) and its written in cuneiform script, which was used to
write the unrelated Sumerian language. The tablet is not very big, measuring
11.6 by 5 centimeters (4.6 by 2 inches). But what it might be lacking in size
it makes it up in fervor. Nanni is really not having it.
“How have
you treated me for that copper? You have withheld my money bag from me in enemy
territory; it is now up to you to restore (my money) to me in full,” he
demands.
After all
this though, we suspect that Nanni had no other option than to shop with
Ea-nasir as he concluded the letter with this: “Take cognizance that (from now
on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I
shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and
I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me
with contempt.”
Well, we
don't know about you, but that's going to be our go-to retort to customer
services from now on.
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