Episode 039 · Out Nov 6, 2026
Ea-nasir sold bad copper – and the complaint is 3,800 years old
Around 1750 BC in Ur, a man named Nanni paid the copper merchant Ea-nasir for "fine quality" ingots – shipped from Magan (Oman) via Dilmun (Bahrain), the metal you mix with tin to get bronze. What he got was bad copper. His messengers were sent away empty-handed, so Nanni wrote a clay tablet: "Who do you think you are…?" He wanted his money back – and only good copper from now on. The twist: when archaeologists dug up Ur (1922–1934), they found more complaints in what was probably Ea-nasir's house. He kept them. Guinness calls it the oldest written customer complaint. Whether Nanni ever got his money back? Nobody knows.
Sources
Every claim in the video was checked against these sources. Where they disagree, the video words it carefully; legends are marked as legends.
In short: Wikipedia "Complaint tablet to Ea-nasir", "Ea-nasir", "Magan (civilization)", "Dilmun", "Bronze Age"; A. L. Oppenheim, "Letters from Mesopotamia" (1967); British Museum BM 131236.
- Wikipedia: Complaint tablet to Ea-nasir en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia: Ea-nasir en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia: Magan (civilization) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia: Dilmun en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia: Bronze Age en.wikipedia.org
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