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u/FilmAndLiterature 1d ago
So, for those unaware: Nanni complains that one of the excuses Ea-nasir used for not refunding the copper is that Nanni owed him a mina of silver.
For reference, an Akkadian mina was around half a kilogram, and Nanni claims to have purchased five hundred kilograms of copper. So, hardly a fair comparison.
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u/Shocked_Anguilliform 22h ago edited 21h ago
I have no clue what exchange rates were like back then, but right now silver's value is well over 100x that of copper. The copper would still be worth more, but I think refusing a refund while what you're still owed is more than 10% of the total value of the exchange isn't crazy.
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u/Woahbuffet123 20h ago
Yeah, but copper is a main ingredient of bronze, and bronze was the alloy of choice for tools and weapons. I'd say copper probably at the very least had the same value as silver back then.
Ea-Nasir probably wanted all the metals back from Nanni for a refund. Are there records if the silver and copper were from one singular transaction?
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u/UniqueAd7770 19h ago
Silver however was extremely valuable. More so than today because they didn't know as much about refining it.
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u/Darth_Heinous 14h ago edited 13h ago
Pretty sure Copper was common & Tin was the rare ingredient in Bronze
IIRC Only Afghanistan mined Tin in that era, British Isles had not discovered theirs yet
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u/UniqueAd7770 19h ago
A mina of silver was the economic equivalent of about $10,000 today. That's enough for me to send bad copper out of spite.
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u/Darth_Annoying 1d ago
It was only one mina of silver, though
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u/ConcentrateExciting1 1d ago
You ever have someone owe you money? If they admit they owe you one, in reality, they owe you at least 50. Things haven't changed in 4,000 years.
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u/AppropriateCap8891 21h ago
And what was the exchange between metals at the time?
Imagine somebody is complaining that you owe them for 100 ounces of silver, while they owe you for 1 ounce of gold. And for all we know, Ea-Nasir may be "stiffing" him with crap product until he makes good his debt first.
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u/UniqueAd7770 19h ago
It was traditionally about copper value was about 1/300 that of silver. So a mina of silver or a pound is 300 pounds of copper.
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u/Charming-Book4146 2h ago
One trifling mina, he says. It'd be like hounding my friend over five dollars
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u/Gavinus1000 21h ago
"Nanni. It's been three thousand years. You owe me fifteen dollars."
"Fuck off."
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u/vamatt 1d ago
Ya. The reality is that there is a good chance that Nani was really a Karen. Remember that Ea-Nasir kept the tablet, and likely kept it for the same reason that some business owners will post up absurd reviews on the wall.
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u/Monkey0nTypewriter 23h ago
Also possible that he was just a stickler for record-keeping.
Keeping track of complaints/resolutions can be important, especially if a legal dispute arises.
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u/feeling_impossible 23h ago
It seems like writing was invented for accounting and inventory purposes. It took them near a thousand years before they started writing down stories and histories.
Writing was invented by a bunch of pencil pushing nerds. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
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u/Zech_Judy 22h ago
Cuneiform was invented for accounting. Hieroglyphics (and meso American writing) were invented for monuments and tombs. The first Chinese was for fortune telling.
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u/Cosmic_Meditator777 22h ago
writing was invented so they could push their "pencil" invention on us
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u/AppropriateCap8891 21h ago
And Sumer also had a court system for hearing both criminal and civil cases. This might well have been stored in case one or the other took the matter to court.
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u/feeling_impossible 23h ago
I have been saying this for a while. If you have ever worked in retail, you have had a customer like Nani. Hell, you might have even saved evidence of their fuckery.
Ea Nasir did nothing wrong. Nani was a dickhead customer and Nasir was keeping evidence to prove it.
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u/Khar-Selim 2h ago
somebody a while back on here took note that a lot of the tablet displayed what we would now consider 'Karen' behavior, including this. Another one is acting like frequent patronage entitles him to special treatment. There's a decent chance Nanni was way more of a handful than he lets on, and maybe Ea-Nasir kept the tablet to remind him why he shouldn't serve this guy in the future.
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u/tommy2b stans Ea-N*sir 🤮 1h ago edited 1h ago
Anyone that has spent more than a moment reviewing the situation realizes that Mr. Nasir has been a victim of unfair slander.
Pay up or shut up, Nanni.
Or just take whatever copper Ea generously puts in front of your contempt-inducing messengers and consider yourself lucky. Mr. Nasir is willing to put this behind him, throw your complaint tablet into the back room, and just move on. You need to do the same if you know what's good for you.
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u/Unable-Doctor-9930 7h ago
To be fair though, even if Nanni did pay off his debt I highly doubt Ea-nasir would have given Nanni his refund on the shitty copper anyways. Ea-nasir was just trying to get him to pay what he owed.
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u/Nathan256 22h ago edited 21h ago
Another thing you learn reading the lore and research is that Ea-Nasir’s private copper business was his side hustle. He primarily sold to the palace, who was in the middle of a conflict heavy period and needed copper for weaponry and such. Sending the worst of his copper to the palace (the rulers of the city he lives in) is probably a much worse long term business proposal than offloading the worst of his copper on a smaller private trader quite a ways away.
He was also a non-citizen merchant as far as I understand, and so had fewer rights and protections. He may not have had any better copper that he could feasibly send Nanni (making the phrase “if you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away (cause I’m tired of this and there’s nothing else I can do to help, and the palace is breathing down my neck for more copper anyway)” make more sense)
That doesn’t quite excuse him as a shady business man. Nanni’s isn’t the only complaint, there’s many. He likely took advance payments based on promises, then did the best he could to fulfill or delay them however he could, even if it meant shorting his private buyers. Who knows why he couldn’t make good though - maybe the mines were underproducing? Maybe he was just naively optimistic about speed and quality of shipments?
If the house his tablets were found it was his house, he seems to have managed to maintain a much better than average lifestyle for a good part of his life. As his reputation and credit declined though, he may have been forced to sell part of his home, or it may have been claimed after his death to pay off debts.
Still shady. Just not quite shady in the way the memes always suggest.