Ea-Nasir
Ea-Nasir was a copper merchant during the reign of Rim-Sin in ancient Ur, a Sumerian city-state. If you don’t know what a city-state is, you gave your teacher a hard time in middle school and you can go look it up yourself. Now, Ea-Nasir was not the greatest of guys and he was known to be late on his shipments and was just kind of a shady guy in general.
Initially it seems as though he was working for the palace and was seen as a pretty trustworthy dude. He could trade on credit, and he had plenty of customers. But as time went on, he spent more time in the trading center of Dilmun and his shipments to Ur ran late. He seems to have crossed a particularly important customer named Nigga-Nanna, who had many friends. A man named Arbituram sent multiple cuneiform tablets on Nigga’s behalf, asking why his friend had not received his copper. Imgur-Sin, with very ‘bless your heart’ vibes, wrote, “May Samas bless your life…Do you know how tired I am [of this]?”. A third man named Appa volunteered, “The copper of mine, give it to Nigga-Nanna - good copper, in order that my heart shall not be troubled.” That Nigga-Nanna must have been one heck of a guy.
On a different occasion, another customer wrote sarcastically to him “the work that you have done is soooooooo good.” and demanded return of their payment. Even his business partners were aware of his sparkling personality. When giving him instructions on how to conduct a transaction with certain customer, his partner felt it necessary to remind Ea-Nasir not to piss off the buyer.
Ea-Nasir ultimately went down in infamy as the result of a complaint leveled against him by another businessman named Nanni. The tablet written in Akkadian cuneiform is the oldest known written complaint from around the year 1750BCE. Ea-Nasir had promised some good copper ingots to Nanni, which Nanni had paid for. But when Nanni sent a servant through a dangerous war zone to pick them up, Ea-Nasir gave him some crappy ones and told Nanni’s messenger to take them or leave them. Nanni’s faithful servant returned through the war zone and told him what had happened. Nanni was like, ‘What the hell man? You don’t treat me or my servant like that’. So, Nanni wrote him a letter and said he didn’t even want the damn copper anymore, he just wanted his money back. He sent his message, but Ea-Nasir sent his servant back again with nothing, and this is when Nanni goes on his famous (and justified) rant, which is now displayed in the British Museum in London. It reads:
Now, when you had come, you spoke saying thus: “I will give good ingots to Gimil-Sin’; this you said to me when you had come, but you have not done it. You have offered bad ingots to my messenger, saying “If you will take it, take it; if you will not take it, go away.” Who am I that you are treating me in this manner - treating me with such contempt? and that between gentlemen such as we are. I have written to you to receive my money, but you have neglected [to return] it. Repeatedly you have made them [messengers] return to me empty-handed through foreign country. Who is there amongst the Dilmun traders who has acted against me in this way? You have treated my messenger with contempt. And further with regard to the silver that you have taken with you from my house you make this discussion. And on your behalf, I gave 18 talents of copper to the palace, and Sumi-Abum also gave 18 talents of copper, apart from the fact that we issued the sealed document to the temple of Samas. With regard to that copper, as you have treated me, you have held back my money in a foreign territory, although you are obligated to hand it over to me intact. You will learn that here in Ur I will not accept from you copper that is not good. In my house, I will choose and take the ingots one by one. Because you have treated me with contempt, I shall exercise against you my right of selecting the copper.
Nanni was tired of Ea-Nasir jerking him around and his promise that “You will learn…” seems to have been fulfilled. The historical and archeological records indicate that Ea-Nasir’s business dealings started going south after these encounters. He went from copper merchant to second-hand clothing peddler. Part of his house was absorbed into the dwelling next door, suggesting he was eventually desperate enough to sell portions of his home to stay afloat. Once you start selling off spare bedrooms, you’re in pretty bad shape. Oh, well. Hopefully Nanni and the rest of the crew found someone else to get their copper from.
References
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1953-0411-71
Hyken, S. (2015, April 23). Oldest customer service complaint discovered: A lesson from ancient babylon. Forbes. Retrieved May 6, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2015/04/23/oldest-customer-service-complaint-discovered-a-lesson-from-ancient-babylon/?sh=355d923866f1
Killgrove, K. (2018, May 11) Meet The Worst Businessman Of the 18th Century BC. Forbes. Retrieved May 6, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2018/05/11/meet-the-worst-businessman-of-the-18th-century/?sh=588a6b842d5d
Most, K. S. (1976). How Wrong Was Sombart? The Accounting Historians Journal, 3(1/4), 22–28. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40697407