Meaning
What does Ea-Nasir mean?
Ea-Nasir is the name of a notorious Babylonian trader, to whom the world’s first complaints were addressed.
These complaints, inscribed to clay tablets, reveal the shady deals of “Ea-Nasir” who sold low quality copper to Nassi, who inscribed the documents.
Online, the story inspired a large number of memes, revolving around the subject of ancient fraud and customer support.
Origin
What's the origin of Ea-Nasir?
The original clay tablets were found in 1953 by British archeologist Sir Leonard Woolley in the presumed home of “Ea-Nasir” in the city of Ur.
The large number of tablets with similar content found in the same place allowed researchers to assume that “Ea-Nasir” frequently dealt in low quality products, swindling his customers as early as 1750BC.
The tablets are currently kept in the British Museum.
Spread & Usage
How did Ea-Nasir spread?
Discussions about the tablets and “Ea-Nasir” started surfacing on Reddit in 2015, with even a translation of the contents of the tablet being published from the 1967 book Letters from Mesopotamia.
Within days, the topic spread on to Tumblr and Imgur, where users recognized that “Ea-Nasir” achieved immortality in the memory of mankind thanks to his “dodgy business deals”.
Since 2017, memes about “Ea-Nasir” had emerged in formats such as Roll Safe, Chad vs Virgin as well as Political Compass.
In March, 2021, a news report of a man getting sold painted rocks instead of copper surfaced on several news networks, to which Tumblr user brightwanderer posted the article, with the caption “Ea-Nasir is that you”.
External resources
- Joyofmuseums.com – Complaint Tablet To Ea-Nasir – World’s Oldest Complaint Letter
- Forbes – Meet The Worst Businessman Of The 18th Century BC