Is this the world’s oldest customer complaint? 3,750-year-old Babylonian tablet details how a person called ‘Nanni’ was not happy with a delivery of ancient copper ore

If you have ever composed a shirty email complaining about damaged goods, a mixed-up order or late delivery, you certainly weren’t the first.

An intricate tablet, thought to be the world’s oldest complaint ‘letter’ was written by a disappointed customer from ancient Babylonia, 3,766 years ago.

In it, ‘Nanni’ complains to a merchant about receiving the wrong grade of copper ore that’s arrived late and is slightly damaged.
Continue reading World’s oldest customer complaint translated →

Finally a decent place to eat! Archaeologists digging in southern France have found a restaurant-like structure roughly 2,100 years old, making it one of the earliest such taverns in the western Mediterranean.
Continue reading 1st Century bar? Archaeological find in France offers glimpse →

11,000 year old pendant is earliest known Mesolithic art in Britain

YORK, ENGLAND—An 11,000-year-old pendant has been discovered in lake-edge deposits at the Early Mesolithic site at Star Carr in North Yorkshire. It is triangular in shape, was carved from a single piece of shale, has a hole in one corner, and is engraved with a series of lines that scholars think could represent a tree, a map, a leaf, or tally marks. At first, the artifact was thought to be a natural stone, since the perforation was blocked by sediment. “It is unlike anything we have found in Britain from this period. We can only imagine who owned it, how they wore it, and what the engravings actually meant to them,” Nicky Milner of the University of York said in a press release. Shale beads, a piece of perforated amber, and two perforated animal teeth have also been recovered from the site. “The designs on our pendant are similar to those found in southern Scandinavia and other areas bordering the North Sea, showing a close cultural connection between northern European groups at this time,” added Chantal Conneller of the University of Manchester. Continue reading Beauty in antiquity: MESOLITHIC PENDANT DISCOVERED →

Archaeologists managed to unearth a rare seal bearing the name of an “exceptional” woman who lived during Jerusalem’s First Temple period about 2,500 years ago, media reports said.

Continue reading Ancient Exceptionalism: 2,500-Year-Old Seal of Influential Woman Found →