Complaint Tablet to Ea-nasir — Two Babylonian cuneiform tablets in museum display with placard labeling them as a complaint about copper delivery from around

Complaint Tablet to Ea-nasir

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Published October 8, 2026

The Complaint Tablet to Ea-nasir is a Babylonian clay tablet from around 1750 BC in which a customer named Nanni chews out a merchant named Ea-nasir for selling him bad copper. The British Museum artifact crossed over into meme territory in 2015 after a Reddit snapshot of the display plaque jumped to Tumblr the same day, kicking off nearly a decade of jokes treating Ea-nasir as history's first scam seller.

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Overview

The joke works because Nanni's gripe translates almost word-for-word into modern online complaining. Posters quote the 1967 English translation of the tablet, in which Nanni calls Ea-nasir's copper "contemptible" and complains about delivery through enemy territory, then rework the text as if Ea-nasir were still running the same scam today4. The format often appears as screenshots of the Tumblr thread that paired the museum photo with the full translation, treating a 3,775-year-old merchant like a present-day eBay fraud5.

Common variants include tabletop RPG bits where the tablet shows up as an "ancient Sumerian curse" that turns out to be a bill6, political compass versions sorting Nanni and Ea-nasir onto quadrants, and Virgin vs Chad comparisons casting buyers as hapless and Ea-nasir as a smug fraud5. On 4chan's /tg/ and /his/ boards, threads sometimes turn earnest, with posters debating whether Ea-nasir actually did anything wrong5. Ea-nasir material also mixes with Soomer wojak edits, giving the merchant a modern cartoon face.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit / Tumblr (viral spread)
Date
2015

The physical tablet was dug up in 1953 by British explorer Sir Leonard Woolley at the ancient city of Ur, in what is believed to be the ruins of Ea-nasir's own home2. Several other complaint tablets about poor copper were pulled from the same site, which suggested that Ea-nasir had a long lineup of unhappy customers over his career3. The artifact is now part of the British Museum's collection and is cataloged under the plaque "Complaint about delivery of the wrong grade of copper"2.

The meme life started on February 25, 2015, when Redditor u/tbc34 posted a photo of that museum plaque to /r/pics under the title "1750 BC problems," pulling over 44,700 upvotes4. The same day, Tumblr user tastefullyoffensive reposted the image with the caption "Babylonian era problems," crediting the Redditor; the Tumblr post ran up more than 587,000 notes over the following six years9. A commenter on the Reddit thread, u/labarna, pasted the English translation of the tablet from the 1967 book Letters from Mesopotamia, which gave later jokes a block of text to riff on4.

How It Spread

The tablet kept finding new homes across platforms through the late 2010s. On April 30, 2017, a Facebook page called "Complaint Tablet to Ea-Nasir Memes for Teens Who Are Not of Good Quality" opened and kept posting Ea-nasir material consistently through 20215. On March 13, 2018, Tumblr user probablybadrpgideas turned the tablet into a tabletop RPG joke about an ancient Sumerian "curse" that is really an ancient Sumerian bill, pulling more than 114,000 notes over three years6. A screenshot of the thread, filled with sly references to Ea-nasir, hit /r/tumblr nine days later5.

The format kept recycling through established meme templates: a political compass version by u/Arcaeca landed on December 27, 2019, and a Virgin vs Chad comic by u/vulpineleather followed on October 14, 20205. On March 9, 2021, after the BBC reported on a British man who received painted rocks instead of copper from an overseas seller1, Tumblr user brightwanderer flagged the story with the line "….. Ea-Nasir is that YOU" and picked up over 23,900 notes in two days10.

A fresh bump came in spring 2023. On March 29, Twitter user @Chinchillazllla joked "GUY IN 1750 BC: can everyone please stop chiseling tablets complaining about Ea-Nasir, you're just giving him a bigger platform," pulling more than 3,300 likes in a week8. Days later, on April 3, 2023, xkcd posted an Ea-nasir webcomic to Twitter that pulled over 12,700 likes in a day7.

Timeline

1953

Sir Leonard Woolley excavates the tablet at the ancient city of Ur, in what is thought to be Ea-nasir's own house.

2015-02-25

Redditor u/tbc34 posts a photo of the British Museum plaque to /r/pics under the title '1750 BC problems'; Tumblr user tastefullyoffensive reposts it the same day.

2017-04-30

The Facebook page 'Complaint Tablet to Ea-Nasir Memes for Teens Who Are Not of Good Quality' opens and begins posting Ea-nasir content.

2018-03-13

Tumblr user probablybadrpgideas turns the tablet into a tabletop RPG joke about an ancient Sumerian bill, pulling over 114,000 notes.

2019-12-27

Redditor u/Arcaeca posts an Ea-nasir political compass meme to /r/PoliticalCompassMemes.

2020-10-14

Redditor u/vulpineleather posts a Virgin vs Chad comic casting Ea-nasir as the Chad merchant.

2021-03-09

The BBC reports on a man sent painted rocks instead of copper; Tumblr user brightwanderer tags Ea-nasir and the post pulls over 23,900 notes.

2023-04-03

Xkcd posts an Ea-nasir webcomic to Twitter, pulling over 12,700 likes in a day.

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How to Use This Meme

The format typically starts with the Nanni translation text and swaps modern grievances into stiff Babylonian cadence, or treats Ea-nasir as an ongoing historical villain who is still shipping bad copper into the present day. Posts often appear as mock customer complaints in cuneiform-flavored English, D&D or tabletop prompts in the style of probablybadrpgideas, political compass squares, or Virgin vs Chad side-by-sides pitting Nanni against Ea-nasir56.

Frequently Asked Questions