The Oldest Known Complaint Letter, Written in Cuneiform Clay

A Babylonian merchant named Nanni was absolutely fed up. Sometime around 1750 BCE, he pressed a sharpened reed into a wet clay tablet, venting his frustration in neatly arranged cuneiform. The subject of his ire: a shipment of inferior copper ingots delivered by a supplier named Ea-nasir, whose business practices—judging from the tone—left much to be desired.

Nanni’s letter, which survives today in the British Museum, isn’t just the world’s oldest known complaint—it reads with a timeless exasperation that makes the span of nearly four thousand years feel strangely small. The text, transliterated from Akkadian, details how Nanni’s representatives were insulted and sent away empty-handed with subpar copper, despite having paid in full. Nanni demands that his messenger be respected and that Ea-nasir send the “good quality copper” as previously agreed.

Clay tablet correspondence was standard business practice in the ancient Near East, since writing was expensive but essential for trade. Letters had to convey transactions and maintain professional relationships, but Nanni’s note suggests that customer service woes are as old as commerce itself. One can almost picture him muttering under his breath as he instructs his scribe to document just how unsatisfactory this transaction has been.

Even the afterlife of this tablet adds a modern flavor: It sat undisturbed until archaeologists excavated Ea-nasir’s house in the ruins of Ur, where they uncovered numerous similar complaints addressed to him by various clients. Scholars have taken to referring to “Ea-nasir” as history’s first bad supplier, a figure whose customer relations have become an unexpected internet meme.

Long before emails and angry phone calls, a frustrated Babylonian merchant found catharsis in the stubborn permanence of baked clay. Some problems, it turns out, are eternal.