---
title: 'History''s Worst Copper Merchant & His 4000 Year Old Cake'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=3XI-2jLUI24'
video_id: '3XI-2jLUI24'
date: 2026-08-25
duration_sec: 1247
channel: 'Tasting History with Max Miller'
---

# History's Worst Copper Merchant & His 4000 Year Old Cake

> Source: [History's Worst Copper Merchant & His 4000 Year Old Cake](https://youtube.com/watch?v=3XI-2jLUI24)

## Summary

The video explores the story of Ea-nāsir, a notoriously bad copper merchant from ancient Ur, and attempts to recreate a 4,000-year-old date cake based on a Sumerian ingredient list. The host discusses the historical context, the challenges of recreating ancient recipes, and the famous complaint letters that made Ea-nāsir infamous.

### Key Points

- **Recreating an Ancient Cake** [00:14] — The host uses a cuneiform tablet from a Sumerian palace to recreate a date cheesecake that might have been eaten by someone like Ea-nāsir.
- **The Ancient Ingredient List** [01:00] — The recipe is based on a list of ingredients and proportions for 'gug egala kura' (cake sent to the palace) from the third dynasty of Ur, written about 200 years before the first known recipe.
- **Ingredients and Measurements** [01:16] — The list includes 3 sila of first quality dates and 1/3 sila of Smyrna raisins. One sila is about a liter, but it's unclear if these were the exact proportions for the cake.
- **Missing Ingredients** [01:45] — The host is confident that fine flour is missing from the list, based on a later description from Hammurabi's reign for a similar cake that includes flour.
- **Uncertain Preparation** [02:28] — There are no known preparation methods, so the host acknowledges that whatever they make is likely wrong, but notes that anyone who could correct them died 4,000 years ago.
- **Modern Recipe Ingredients** [04:09] — The host uses 3 tablespoons of white cheese (ricotta), 1/2 cup of salted butter, 1.5 cups of pitted dates, 3 tablespoons of raisins, and 3/4 cup of whole wheat flour.
- **Sumerian Words for Ingredients** [05:06] — The host provides Sumerian words: date is 'zú.lum', butter is 'ì.nun', cheese is 'ga.àr', and Smyrna raisins is 'geštin.hád.a'.
- **Preparation Steps** [05:19] — The host chops and grinds dates into a paste (called 'bur.ra.àr.ra' in Sumerian), then mixes butter, flour, and cheese together, and adds the dates.
- **Baking with Grape Leaves** [06:19] — The host wraps the cake in grape leaves to prevent burning and steam the cake, then bakes at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.
- **Ea-nāsir's Background** [07:02] — Ea-nāsir was a copper merchant who lived in Ur, one of the oldest cities in the world, and his home was excavated in the 1920s by Leonard Woolley.
- **Ea-nāsir's Business** [10:21] — Ea-nāsir traded goods like emmer wheat, barley, silver, and cloth for copper from Dilmun (modern-day Bahrain), and was one of the main importers of copper to the palace of Larsa.
- **Complaint Letters** [12:07] — Several complaint letters were found in Ea-nāsir's home, including one from Nanni complaining about poor quality copper and demanding better treatment.
- **Questioning the Narrative** [14:08] — The host questions whether Ea-nāsir was truly a swindler, noting that the complaint letters are one-sided and that the palace may have taken the best copper, leaving only lower quality for Ea-nāsir.
- **Final Result and Tasting** [17:32] — The cake looks like a Christmas pudding or spotted dick, but is firm and a little dry. The host suggests adding more cheese or using salted cheese like feta for better flavor.

### Conclusion

The video concludes that while the cake is edible, it's not particularly delicious, and the host encourages viewers to try their own variations. The story of Ea-nāsir serves as a reminder of how little we know about ancient people, and the host laments that modern records may not survive as well as cuneiform tablets.

## Transcript

It is a well known fact that the worst copper  merchant in history was a man named Ea-nāsir. In fact, he is the subject of history's oldest  complaint letter and a bunch of memes online. But while we know that his copper was absolute trash,  we don't know much about what the man ate.
So I am going to use a cuneiform tablet from  a Sumerian palace to try to recreate a date cheesecake which might have been eaten  by someone like  Ea-nāsir. So thank you to Saily eSIM for sponsoring this video as we make a 4,000-year-old cake,
this time on Tasting History. And sometimes you can get a recipe so old that no matter what you do, you can only
guess that what you're actually making even resembles what the person who wrote it down was talking about. Well, this takes it one step further because I am actually working simply from a list of ingredients
that was actually written about 200 years before the first known recipe. It comes from the third dynasty of Ur, which ruled Sumeria in the late 3rd millennia BC and is simply a list of ingredients and proportions for a gug egala kura, or cake sent to the palace.
3 sila of first quality dates, 1/3 sila of Smyrna raisins. So yeah, that is hardly a recipe. And while it is really cool that we have exact measurements, one sila being about a liter,
we don't actually know if those were the proportions  used to make the cake. Or it was simply a list of  ingredients that were kind of being used to top off an already existing supply. Also, we don't know if there are missing ingredients  in that list. In fact,
we can be pretty confident that there is one missing and that is excellent flour, And that's because the tablet refers to gug egala kura, gug being cake and it refers to a cake
There's also a later description from around the reign of Hammurabi for a similar cake and it does include flour. So, I'm pretty confident that we're going to use fine flour, and that would be flour  either from emmer or spelt rather than barley,
Then on top of the unknowns about the ingredients, we also have no idea about the actual preparation  and the methods of making this cake.
So with all of those unknowns in the mix, we can be  wonderfully confident that whatever we make is going to be wrong. And that's because there are  just too many unknowns to actually get it right.
It would be like hitting the lottery. But the nice thing is, anyone who could actually tell me that I did it wrong died 4,000 years ago. And while I would love to talk to a ancient Sumerian baker,
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And to get started on our cake, what you'll need is 3 tablespoons or 45 grams of white cheese. I'm using ricotta. 1/2 cup or 115 grams of salted butter, 1 and 1/2 cups or 300 grams of pitted dates, 3 tablespoons or 30 grams of raisins.
It calls specifically for Smyrna raisins, which would be coming from the shores of Anatolia, modern-day Turkey, Then 3/4 of a cup or 90 grams of whole wheat flour.
I'm also going to bake this cake wrapped in grape leaves, which will act like a modern-day parchment and will stop the dates and raisins from burning. You don't have to do this, Also, I love that we actually know the Sumerian words for all of the ingredients in this cake.
Pronunciation of Sumerian is up for debate but as I understand it, the word for date is zú.lum. Butter is ì.nun. Cheese is ga.àr. Smyrna raisins is geštin.hád.a.
And that is your Sumerian lesson for today. Now, as I said, there are numerous ways that this cake could have actually been made. So, this is just one possible version of making this cake.
So start by chopping the dates and then mince them as fine as possible and then take some and put them into a mortar and grind them into a paste. This process in Sumerian  was called bur.ra.àr.ra. Once they are well ground, set them aside and in a large bowl add the butter to the flour along with the cheese
and then mix everything together. It helps if the butter is softened. This is actually more like a mixture that you would use when preparing a Christmas pudding. In fact, the cake actually has more in common with a steamed pudding than it does with a cheesecake,
including the fact that it is filled with fruit, namely the dates, which  you can add right now and mix into the dough. Once they are mixed in, you can either add in the  raisins now, or I decided that I was going to put them on top and bottom of the cake just to kind of add some layers and for decoration.
Honestly, I do not know if that was the right decision,  but I guess we will find that out when we do the tasting. Also, now is the time that you do need to make a decision about baking this cake, you can just put it into a tin and pop it into the oven.
Or if you have some grape leaves growing in your backyard like I do, you can take a few and wrap this puppy up. You can also buy grape leaves at most Mediterranean markets. They use them to make dolma, but if you get those, make sure to rinse them really well because they are usually soaked in brine.
If you also get fresh ones out of your backyard, you should rinse those pretty well, too. And then I tossed in a few raisins and set the dough on top.
The point of doing this is one, not to burn the raisins in the oven, and two, to sort of steam the cake to keep it from drying out. Then pop it in the oven at 350° F, 175° C, and bake for 30 minutes.
Now, as I mentioned this recipe comes from the city of Ur, which was one of the oldest cities in the world. And it was home to some famous people. One of those people being the biblical patriarch Abraham. But just behind him in fame, I think, is a  man who actually lived just one street over,
I believe, from where this cake would have been  made, and that was a dodgy copper merchant named Ea-nāsir. So, before I get to the subpar copper dealings of  ancient Babylon, I wanted to thank my friend Arim
for helping me with the research for this video  and also just inspiring me to do it because he has been working on a cookbook for the past 8 years, I believe, called 'Table of Gods'. And it's all recipes from this area of the world
And I love it because it's not only a bunch of recipes, but it also is like a guide book. He leads you through  11 cities of this region, which is just a cool way to put the book together. Also,
they say don't judge a book by its cover, but if you ever do, it should be this book because the cover is so cool. He has had it embossed to look like a cuneiform tablet, which features one of the earliest recipes from Babylon.
So if you want to pre-order I will put a link to that in the description, or you can just head to tableofgods.com/kickstarter. And one of the stories that Arim actually includes  in the book is the story of Ea-nāsir.
But here's the thing, this is not Ea-nāsir. See, sometime in the recent past, this guy has just been associated become associated with Ea-nāsir, but this is actually a statue of an unknown worshipper
So it would be like someday people talking about me, but instead of using my picture, they flash up a picture of the Venerable Bede. But regardless of what he looked like, because we don't actually know what he looked like, Ea-nāsir was a very interesting character because
most of the people that we know a lot about from this period are like kings and queens and royal advisers and stuff like that, lofty people. But Ea-nāsir was just a merchant trading copper during the reign of Rim-sin of Larsa around 1800 BC.
But the reason that we do know so much about this random guy is because in the 1920s an archaeologist named Leonard Woolley excavated his home in the city of Ur. What's really cool is that we actually know his address.
It is 1 Old street. Obviously in ancient Babylon that is not what he would have said his address was. No, it was because when Woolley excavated the area, he decided to put some of his favorite English street
names over the city of Ur. So this ancient city has like a Pater Noster Road and Old Street and stuff like that. It's kind of weird, but that's what stuck.
Anyway, Ea-nāsir's home on Old Street was a large nearly 1,200 square foot home made of mud brick. It had seven rooms including a reception room and a chapel. And around the house were found a number of clay tablets about his business.
This is one of the official merchants who traveled between Ur and Dilmun, which was in modern-day Bahrain. And it was kind of the epicenter and a crossroads for
a lot of really high-quality goods including metals especially copper. Now just like Vanderlay Industries Ea-nāsir was in the import and export business. He would take certain goods like emmer wheat and barley but along with silver and cloth
from Ur and take that down to Dilmun and then trade it for copper And it seems that he was one of the main importers of copper especially copper to the palace of Larsa.
And since bronze is like 88% copper, being a copper merchant in the early bronze age was it was big business. But it was also an expensive business, and this seems  to be where got into a little hot water.
See Ea-nāsir was kind of just a middleman. He would take these goods like the silver and the different foods and and cloth from people in and around Ur and and the other cities and then that would pay
for his trip down to Dilmun and pay for the copper  that he would take which he would then import bck and then give to those merchants. like they prepaid kind of thing. And the copper that they expected to get was
supposed to be really high quality copper. But it doesn't seem that it always was high-quality copper. At least not if you believe the complaint letters that were found in Ea-nāsir's home.
Written in the Acadian language, one letter from an Ili-iddinam complains that the copper he received was of poor quality and demands a refund. Another from Arbituram complains of not receiving his copper at all.
But the most famous complaint letter and frankly the reason that the internet knows at all It is written on a tablet about the size of a cell phone and it starts off with Nanni saying
that Ea-nāsir promised him fine quality copper but when he sent his messenger to pick up the copper the copper was anything but fine quality. "When you came, you said to me as follows: 'I will give Gimi-Sin fine quality copper ingots.'
You put ingots which were not good before my messenger and said: 'If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!'
Who do you take me for, that you treat someone like me with such contempt?.. Is there anyone among the merchants who trade with Dilmun who has treated me in this way?" He says that his messenger had to travel through enemy lands to get to a Ea-nāsir
and then to send him back empty-handed is a complete slap in the face. that he owes Ea-nāsir some silver, a mina of  silver. It's not very much, a trifling amount
and really that should not be enough to treat him with  such contempt. He closes the letter by saying, "Be advised that I will not accept any copper from you that is not of good quality.
From now on, I shall personally select the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise my right of refusal against you, since you have treated me with such contempt."
And it is because of that letter that today we know a conman, a swindler, a huckster. But that is only if you really trust the letter. Because do you trust every bad Yelp review that you read?
I mean, especially when that Yelp review admits that they owe the establishment money. Maybe not. Maybe you got to take it, My question really is, Ea-nāsir why did you keep all of these complaint letters? Because
a good portion of the things that he kept seem to be complaints. I have a few theories. One theory is that Ea-nāsir  was actually a complete troll and he just loved the fact that he was scamming these people and so these letters were sort of like trophies. Possible.
Another thing would be that he just kind of found  them laughable that they were so ridiculous and everybody knew that they were ridiculous so he  kept them the kind of the way that I did a video where people left mean comments. I did Max reads mean comments on the channel [Ketchup with Max and Jose]
He was just gathering these to do his own Ea-nāsir reads mean comments video. That's another thought. Another theory that some historians have put forward is  that during this period the palace was basically
taking everything that was worth anything. All of the really good copper would have immediately been snatched up by the palace and that would only leave kind of mid-grade or even low-grade copper for Ea-nāsir to sell on to give to the other people who had invested in his travels.
So that's a possibility and frankly kind of seems likely. But since we haven't actually heard Ea-nāsir's side of the story, we have to take the complaint letters for what they are. And so we just have to think the man is a historic swindler.
Now eventually Ea-nāsir actually got out of the copper business and started selling- dealing in like lower quality goods and then he did some real estate speculation. And we don't really know how his career ended.
What we do know is that at some point his lovely seven room house was divided up with a neighbor and so it might have been that he fell on hard times and he needed to sell it off.
But it also could have been that after he died, his heirs were like, we don't want this place. So, you know, they had kind of an estate sale. I mean, the fact that we know as much as we do about this man who lived 4,000 years ago is pretty amazing, especially because
And it makes me lament the fact that we don't still write cuneiform or on clay tablets or chiseled in stone because most of what I write is either on paper
or you know in a computer digitally and I don't  think any of that stuff is going to be around in 4,000 years I won't really be remembered and that's a little sad.
So maybe I should get some- does anybody know cuneiform and how to make a clay tablet? Anyway, what would be cool though is if at least some  of our collective recipes are remembered in 4,000 years because
properly recreate what we are making, I think. As opposed to me who today am just having to rely on
a vague list of ingredients and proportions to  make this cake that was sent to the palace. Now, once the cake had cooled, I pulled back the grape leaves, which were completely burnt. And that made me glad that I included them. Otherwise, those raisins on top would have been burnt to a crisp.
And here we are, a cake meant for a Sumerian palace during the third dynasty of ur. So I have to say it really does look like a Christmas pudding or or spotted dick which I made last year. Any of those kind of fruit filled British boiled puddings, but this isn't boiled. It's baked.
And I just wonder maybe actually boiling or steaming it would have been better because it is firm, rather firm. So I'm curious what the texture is going to be like.
Also, yeah, I think the raisins should go in it. Uh cuz  they just kind of fall off the top. [chomp]
Hm. I love that I said modern pudding, even though those recipes are mostly like 2 and 300 years old.
all relative rather to a 4,000-year-old cake. The flavor is rather similar. I wish that there was maybe more cheese or more
something because it is a little dry and it makes it just a little gritty. Now, maybe if I played with the proportions  of flour, I could find something. But if you don't have enough flour, then all of that butter is just going to melt and not have anything to hold on to and it will just like
get out of the cake and just melt and make a burnt mess. So, I went with proportions that stop that using  kind of like some modern more modern recipes that I know of.
But the flavor is good. I mean if you like dates 'cus it is heavily date flavored. The butter is very nice. It's very it adds a certain richness.
The cheese again I just maybe wish there was more cheese. I think you could even use like a salted cheese that would add a little a little more to it. They didn't really add salt to things. So yeah, some salted cheese, maybe like some feta. I don't know.
But again, it's just kind of fun to try to recreate a possible something that would be- have been eaten that far back in the past. You know that maybe Ea-nāsir
eating this cake just laughing laughing at all those dupes that he has conned out of quality copper. Anyway, I can't decide if I should recommend you making this because is it that good? No, it's fine. It's not terrible, but
there's so many other things you could make. Maybe  I think if you do want to make this, try something different. Do something that I didn't do and then message me in the comments or post on Reddit, the Tasting History Reddit
to let me know, you know, some of the other ways 'cus there are there are hundreds of ways that this could have been done and I just did one of them. So there it is, and I will see you next time on Tasting History.