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: Indigenous Terror 
In the ancient Mediterranean, letters were often inscribed in clay. If you've ever worked with clay, you'll know that it gets brittle if it gets dry without being fired. It was not meant for long-term storage.
Nevertheless, because of a fire, we have communication with a man named Ea-Nasir, c. 1750 BCE. He collected hundreds of tablets written to him.
They were all complaints. Ea-Nasir was a copper dealer and the first known con artist.
The British Museum has one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-nasir
That's a story that writes itself. Con artist angers one-too-many people, gets his place burned down.
@noelle love that story, especially that the guy saved all of his complaints as if they were trophies
@noelle the oldest known bad yelp review
@noelle Along similar lines: archaeologists excavating the ancient Neo-Babylonian city of Ur unearth…a museum, complete with neatly labelled artifacts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennigaldi-Nanna's_museum
@nev thank you for sharing this
@noelle @nev And there's even fanfiction about it https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Ea-Nasir%20(Mesopotamian)/works
@bstacey @noelle @nev Reading about the ancient near east is a wonderful way to reaffirm that humans have been biologically & cognitively modern for a long time, because so much of what went on was so relatable. There was a problem related to rich kids skipping school & busking with lyres. There was popular music about licking honey off naked people.
@tobascodagama @bstacey @noelle @nev Divine epithets are the chuck norris jokes of the ancient world.