Talk:Complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir

Length of quote

Is it too long? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:35, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Letters From Mesopotamia

I'd like to link to a copy of Letters From Mesopotamia. It is available for download here and here. Why isn't it copyrighted? If it is, how can it be available for free download like that? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:58, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Only the first link goes to the book the quote is from; the second is a different book with the same title. The relevant one is copyrighted by the University of Chicago, which has published it on uchicago.edu for free subject to their Terms of Use. (The other book is old enough that it has fallen out of copyright and become public domain.) El Mariachi (talk) 05:41, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

The name

There has to be a better name for this article. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:13, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, particularly as this is only one such complaint tablet. I think the article should be expanded to be about Ea-nasir in general and discuss all the tablets addressed to him. Umimmak (talk) 21:05, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Disagree. For many years now, this has been referenced as the first written complaint in existence. The other tablets aren't really notable except in the context of "oldest written complaint", and as an "internet meme". Ea-nasir, outside of specific academic archaeological contexts, isn't otherwise notable. Obviously all the rest of the tablets aren't significantly older or more recent, technically it might be better to refer to them collectively in the plural as "oldest complaints", but that doesn't rise to a change in article title, nor is usage as an internet meme (I'd link to meme, but it's another term that has different meanings in academic settings). Yes, if Wikipedia were an academic/scientific journal the name change might be considered, but this is a general public use encyclopedia. Cuvtixo (talk) 19:07, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Can someone transcribe the original letter for the article?

This would be very useful to the astute reader. --FUZxxl (talk) 07:49, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

@FUZxxl: this tablet, UET V 81, is transcribed and translated in W. F. Leemans's 1960 Foreign Trade in the Old Babylonian Period pp. 39–40. Google Books has a preview of this work here. Umimmak (talk) 21:04, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

I included the translation from an existing reference (https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-writings/4000-year-old-ancient-babylonian-tablet-oldest-complaint-020313). --Hcovitz (talk) 22:14, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

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Capitalization

Most of the article and its title refer to Ea-nasir; however, he is referred to as Ea-Nasir twice. Is the latter spelling supported anywhere? 98.117.194.87 (talk) 15:30, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Translation

I've removed the translation section; the source (Oppenheim) is still under copyright and after talking with a couple other editors I don't think using the translation of the entire tablet meets WP:NFCC#3b for fair use. Unfortunate that we can't include a translation, but in my opinion using the entire translation of the tablet is too much. If anyone has access to the Leemans source and can verify that its copyright wasn't renewed, that translation should be PD (looking into the copyright status now). I've moved links to the two translations mentioned in the article (Oppenheim and Leemans) to the external links section. Happy to discuss here if someone objects to the removal. GeneralNotability (talk) 23:59, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Strike that - looks like Leemans was published in the Netherlands, and as far as I can tell it's still under copyright there. GeneralNotability (talk) 00:04, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

GeneralNotability apologies for my edit, it hadn't occurred to me that this would constitute a copyright violation. Would including excerpts of the translation be a possibility? It seems like it could add value to the article and likely fall under fair use. Alternatively, given the tablet is currently in the care of the British Museum - would it be worth asking if they could provide a translation potentially? Findoslice (talk) 14:41, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Findoslice, no worries - you're clearly not the first to think it needs a translation, and I entirely agree that adding a translation helps the article. I think that excerpting bits of it is fine under fair use(as long as they're properly attributed, of course!), it's just using the entire translation that is too much. I don't think there's any harm in asking the British Museum, but I suspect they'd just point us at the existing two translations, especially since Oppenheim seems to be the "definitive" translation. GeneralNotability (talk) 15:29, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

GeneralNotability I reached out to Dr. Irving Finkel's (curator at the British museum, the person to talk to when it comes to cuneiform) publicist yesterday, just got a response and it has been passed onto him. I'll let you know if I hear anything from him r.e. a translation. Findoslice (talk) 14:55, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Not including the translation seems prudent if the copyright status is unresolved. I would still provide a prominent link to an authoritative translation so that readers aren't left in the dark. ~ trialsanderrors (talk) 09:11, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Oppenheimer's book is available to download from the University of Chicago ( https://isac.uchicago.edu/research/publications/misc/letters-mesopotamia-official-business-and-private-letters-clay-tablets )

Direct link to file: https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/Publications/Misc/misc_letters_from_mesopotamia.pdf

The book is clearly marked "No longer the property of the University of Chicago Library."

Due to the free availability and clear disclaimer of ownership I believe this is unlikely to violate copyright rules.

I submit we add this translation as an edit below translations:

(Redacted) LordReverendHignessProle (talk) 02:26, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

You do not understand the context correctly. The "No longer the property" mark refers to the specific physical book formerly belonging to the university library that was later scanned, not the copyright on the text itself that still fully belongs to the university press. Remsense ‥ 论 02:33, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

@Findoslice: - hear anything back yet? -- Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 17:31, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

@TenTonParasol: there definitely are English translations which could be added, but I thought the issue was all translations are under copyright and Wikipedia doesn't have a fair use rationale for including the entire translation in the article, so it's less of an issue of it being unsourced and more we'd need a translation to be open source, I think, unless consensus has changed. Umimmak (talk) 02:10, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

@Umimmak: Everything that goes into an article needs to be sourced per WP:RS. Even a non-copyrighted translation needs to have a verifiable source to cite it to. Who translated this? Where did this translation come from? Where was it published? It needs to be properly attributed and verified—hence, it needs a source. I normally wouldn't be so hard-ass about it, but this is written in an ancient extinct language, so a layman's translation feels... well, the burden is higher than not needing to cite that the sky is blue, so it feels like it definitely runs far afoul of no original research to translate it ourselves—which again creates a need for a verified source for any translation, including free, non-copyrighted ones. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 02:35, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

I didn't realize Polynoster was attempting to add a copyright-free translation. I should have read the full edit history -- I thought this was one of the existing copyrighted English ones out there already. Obviously it should be sourced to a reliable source, not a translation by a Wikipedia editor.

But perhaps there should be a section about the various translations into English (and other languages?). Also perhaps a fair use argument could be better made if certain key lines were quoted instead of having any author's entire translation? I know there's been a long-standing issue with this page where people keep adding translations since this page has nothing about translations. What do you think about what might belong in a section about translations? It's been a while since I've read the research but I'm not aware of too many secondary sources analyzing / critiquing others' translations which might be an issue, though; but is it okay to say English translations were published by reliable sources X, Y, and Z, with citations to just the translation instead of a secondary source confirming those translations? Umimmak (talk) 02:50, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah! I see nothing wrong with that, and it's definitely fine to use smaller quoted portions especially in the course of describing its contents, especially if a turn of phrase is opaque or a detail is striking or something. I definitely don't see anything wrong with remarking where notable translations were published, especially since that's an important part of the history of the object, and I think citing directly to primary sources there wouldn't be an issue since it's non-interpretive to say "a translation by PERSON was published in YEAR in WORK". I have to look into whether there's commentary on translations. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 03:01, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

I threw together a quick paragraph based on what I could find immediately! Umimmak (talk) 22:32, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

@GeneralNotability: Two questions: 1) There are apparently multiple tablets addressed to Ea-nāṣir besides the main one who's the subject of this article, do any of these have copyright-free translations? If they do, and we can thusly include them on this page, I recommend moving the page to "Ea-nāṣir" anchoring the page on the individual himself. 2) Convoluted proposal but it's worth a try: We ought to have at least a few Assyriologists here on Wikipedia. Can't one of them provide a copyright-free translation? Or ask a professor to? How hard would that be? (not asking a rhetorical question, I'm genuinely curious) Pescavelho (talk) 15:55, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Well I think this specific tablet is what ended up being notable, even if an article about Ea-nāṣir could be written using sources about other tablets as well. But I think the article could do a better job at explaining this is just one such tablet which happened to have gotten wider attention. Umimmak (talk) 16:42, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

@Umimmak Well, according to the article there were multiple tablets adressed to Ea-nāṣir, so the article title should for starters be in the plural, but given that the interest in these tablets stem more from the fact that they all seem to be adressed at a single person, I don't find it inappropriate to make this page "about" Ea-nāṣir himself. All that would have to change would be to make the opening paragraph something along the lines of:

"Ea-nāṣir was a copper trader who lived in Ur around 1750 BCE. Presumably either a Babylonian or a Telmunite, as these were the two ends of his trade route, very little is known about his life, with the only evidence of his existance being several written complaints (in the form of clay tablets, which appear to have been stored in his dwelling) about the poor quality of his products and business. Considered some of, if not the oldest written costumer complaints in recorded history, the tablets, and by extension the otherwise unknown figure of Ea-nāṣir himself, have attracted notoriety among academics and popular culture as an example of microhistory."

With information about the individual tablets (hopefully translations once we get that sorted) being lower in the article. Pescavelho (talk) 19:26, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

In Popular Culture

I know this may seem a bit trivial, but at this point I feel like more people know about this from the popular Ea-nasir memes than for any other reason, and while Wikipedia is not KnowYourMeme, it might be worthwhile to create a section on references in popular culture to point this out, or even just add a brief sentence in the introductory paragraph mentioning it, with a relevant citation (such as to KnowYourMeme).Anomaly17 (talk) 21:47, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Problem is, Know Your Meme is user-generated and not considered reliable (see also WP:KNOWYOURMEME), and making inferences from google search trends is original research, which Wikipedia doesn't do. If reliable sources have discussed ea-nasir's memetic popularity, then we can include it in the article, but not before then. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:20, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

To repeat exactly what Caeciliusinhorto said to agree and make it very clear, it would need to be a reliable source that discusses its internet popularity. A source saying that it was posted to Reddit is not enough. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 23:44, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Reddit may not be enough, but how about XKCD ? piratecheese13 23:21, 03 April 2023 (GMT+5) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.255.89.8 (talk)

References

This might be useful? Delightfully, Ea-Nasir, the Sumerian merchant who saved the complaint tablets he received about his deliveries of sub-standard copper, has become a recurring Internet meme. from this Boston Review article: Kern, Emily (November 3, 2021). "The Radical Promise of Human History". Boston Review. Umimmak (talk) 01:22, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Money

Just as an overall question: was there any money in the Bronze age? The article said the "money" was sent but he didn't receive the copper. What money was there in the Bronze age? From what I know they didn't quite have it as such yet.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.85.192.118 (talk) 10:30, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

wow, looking this up in the article History of Money should have cleared this up, even back in 2015, as the article was started in Nov of 2008. "The invention of money took place before the beginning of written history."(two cites)... I thought there might be confusion between money of account and money of exchange, but the latter dates back 7000 years ago, the former 30,000(!) years, according to the article. There's some debate over when the use of coins, specifically bronze coins, might have started. But please, just reference other Wikipedia articles when you have such doubts! Cuvtixo (talk) 18:57, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

@Cuvtixo: JFTR, the question above wasn't posed in 2015, but an IP added it later and misplaced it. I've fixed the issue by adding a signature and cleaned the mess up. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:32, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

In the article it says Nanni "had paid the money for it". However, this is inaccurate as money wasn't invented until a thousand years later, so whatever he was paid in, it wasn't money. 187.190.224.152 (talk) 19:39, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

See above. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:32, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Picture

The high resolution picture currently used, shows the Tablet displayed upside down. seems to have been an error by the museum, which they have since corrected. I‘d revert the change to the previous picture or label it appropriately. Eg: „Displayed upside down by BM“ 213.147.166.224 (talk) 09:29, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I just visited this page to tell that it was upside down. It would be good to note that on the main page. Assos (talk) 11:27, 7 October 2024 (UTC)