Lots of people were sending me this, so I decided to break down the translation of this tablet, and show you one very famous complaint tablet from the Old Babylonian period (~3,800y ago), and it’s translation from the original Akkadian cuneiform https://twitter.com/lethalityjane/status/1300832788875280388

Ea-nāṣir, from attested sources, was a very wealthy copper merchant from Ur, whose palace in Ur was discovered by Leonard Woolley, who made a habit of screwing over other residents of Ur in copper sales. Individuals with documented complaints to Ea-nāṣir include...

Nanni, Āppâ, Šumi-abum, Muḫaddum, Ili-idinnam, Eribam-Sîn, Izīya, and others; whose complaints ranged from quality of copper to rudeness from Ea-nāṣir’s workers. This complaint, from Nanni to Ea-nāṣir goes like this:

(Translation not my own, because I’m tired )

ana Ea-naṣir
qibī-ma
umma Nannī-ma
anumma talliku
kīam ta[qbiam]
umma attā-ma
gubarī damqūtim
ana Gimil-Sîn anaddin

“Tell Ea-nāṣir: Nanni sends the following message: When you came, you said to me as follows ‘I will give Gimil-Sîn fine quality copper ingots”

tallik-ma [ta]aqbiam
ula teppuš
gubarī la da[am]qūtim
ana mār šiprīya
tašku[n]-ma umma attā-ma
šumma teleqqeā leqqeā
šumma [la] [te]leqqēa atlaka
yâti ana kīma mannim

“You left then but 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!”

tušim-ma ni[????]-ma
kīam temešanni
mārī awīlī ana kimāti
ana kisīya maḫārim
ašpuram-ma
tumêšam-ma
ina qaqqar nakrim

“What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? I have sent as messengers gentleman like ourselves to collect the bag with my money

but you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several times, and that through enemy territory...”

(for brevity I will no longer give the exact Akkadian)

“Is there anyone among the merchants who trade with Telmun who has treated me this way? You alone treat my messenger with contempt! On account of that one (trifling) mina of silver which I owe you, you feel free...”

“to speak in such a way, while I have given to the palace on your behalf 1,080 lbs of copper, and Šumi-abum has likewise given 1,080 lbs of copper, apart from what we both have had written on a sealed tablet to be kept in the temple of Šamaš”

“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. 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.”

Translation from A. Leo Oppenheim “Letters from Mesopotamia, and other information from W. F. Leemans (1960); Oppenheim’s book can be found, for free, here: https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/misc/letters-mesopotamia-official-business-and-private-letters-clay-tablets

i wont comment on the provenance on this tablet and it’s circumstance because I want to sleep tonight lol

the akkadian normalization is completely my own so if there are mistakes then let’s chalk it up to funny haha joke and leave it

holy shit, very embarrassingly realizing that i mixed up the black and white photos!! they’re the reverse and should be with the second set of translations... oh well