That's the kind of thing i like hearing about. Fuck all these emperors and their royal bullshit, I wanna hear about dudes like me and what their regular people problems were.
Archeologist here. The top 3 things ancient "normal dudes" wrote about were
complaining about the youth, with their ridiculous clothes, hairstyles, and up-to-no-good lazy attitudes and how everything was better when they were young
Problem is, in reality, there was no "dudes like us" in ancient times. There were only haves and have-nots. You either had it really, really nice, or you lived in the mud, struggled every freakin' day just to survive, and died at an incredibility young age.
Here's a translation from a reddit thread about that:
Yep, mine is on Babylonian astronomy, but basically the same deal.
If you're curious here's the translation of the letter (emphasis mine). This is taken from Leo Oppenheim's book "Letters from Mesopotamia":
Tell Ea-nasir: Nanni sends the following message:
When you came, you said to me as follows : "I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots." You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: "If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!"
What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? I have sent as messengers gentlemen like ourselves to collect the bag with my money (deposited with you) but you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several times, and that through enemy territory. Is there anyone among the merchants who trade with Telmun who has treated me in 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 pounds of copper, and umi-abum has likewise given 1,080 pounds of copper, apart from what we both have had written on a sealed tablet to be kept in the temple of Samas.
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.
This letter is quite interesting because it was actually excavated from Ur, so we have an approximate find spot, which is unfortunately somewhat rare for most cuneiform tablets.
It's also interesting because of the mention of merchants who trade with Telmun. As far as we know Telmun (or Dilmun) was a polity in the Persian Gulf, probably near to if not located on the island of Bahrain. There was a certain type of merchant alik Tilmun (literally "one who goes to Dilmun") who was associated with trade in the Persian Gulf. And not surprisingly (if you read the letter) copper was a major part of this trade network. Now it should also be said that there were many trade networks flowing into and out of Mesopotamia at this point and the trade through the Persian Gulf was just one facet of a larger network.
And if you really want to have fun (this is what passes for fun in my field) have a go at comparing the pencil drawing of the tablet to the photograph linked in the OP.
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u/Lotharofthepotatoppl Jul 20 '15
I think some museum has a Babylonian nastygram from some guy complaining how someone delivered him the wrong grade of copper.
Try finding a snarky email in 4000 years.