We only know about when humans mastered fire or started using metal. But we know the exact date when the first powered flight took place. What are some really early “first ____” we know the date of for sure?

  • wjrii@lemmy.worldEnglish
    251·
    6 months ago

    There is no definite date, but I do love the circa 1750 BCE “oldest customer complaint,” so please forgive me.

    Now, when you had come, you spoke saying thus: ‘I will give good ingots to Gimil-Sin’; this you said to me when you had come, but you have not done it. You have offered bad ingots to my messenger, saying ‘If you will take it, take it; if you will not take it, go away.’ Who am I that you are treating me in this manner – treating me with such contempt? and that between gentlemen such as we are.

    I have written to you to receive my money, but you have neglected [to return] it. Repeatedly you have made them [messengers] return to me empty-handed through foreign country. Who is there amongst the Dilmun traders who has acted against me in this way? You have treated my messenger with contempt.

    And further with regard to the silver that you have taken with you from my house you make this discussion. And on your behalf I gave 18 talents of copper to the palace, and Sumi-abum also gave 18 talents of copper, apart from the fact that we issued the sealed document to the temple of Samas. With regard to that copper, as you have treated me, you have held back my money in a foreign territory, although you are obligated to hand it over to me intact.

    You will learn that here in Ur I will not accept from you copper that is not good. In my house, I will choose and take the ingots one by one. Because you have treated me with contempt, I shall exercise against you my right of selecting the copper.

      • Technus@lemmy.zip
        6·
        6 months ago

        Do you think Ea-Nasir would be ashamed that people over 3 millennia later are learning about how shitty his copper was, or would he be proud that people still speak his name?

        • Clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          4·
          6 months ago

          That’s a tough one! He clearly didn’t care much about the reputation of his business, and in fact the only reason we know of him at all is that he saved the complaints he got! Most of us will have our names spoken for the last time when our children die; being remembered at all beyond, say, 100 years after your death is a heck of an accomplishment.

          • Technus@lemmy.zip
            5·
            6 months ago

            He clearly didn’t care much about the reputation of his business, and in fact the only reason we know of him at all is that he saved the complaints he got!

            I dunno, we’re just assuming he kept them for the sick pleasure of it. Maybe he was collecting evidence before he lodged a formal complaint with his material supplier?

      • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        Yeah, that’s just the earliest known written complaint. And since the city was already two thousand years old at the time, the odds of there having been more are very high.