It is incorrect to say, as my esteemed colleague does, that we know almost nothing of Ea-Nāṣir, esteemed merchant of the mystical Orient. We have much of his correspondence left to us; most of it is just unpublished. Here for example is the translation of a copy of another letter, from Ea-Nāṣir to one Shumun-Libshi, concerning Ea-Nāṣir's somewhat alarming associates Erissum-Matim and »Mr. Shorty«, a letter whose exhortations are at once unsurprising and illuminating.
We know, also, why we have these letters, and why a 3800-year-old clay tablet is still in good shape. You wouldn't think they would be, because this type of correspondence was normally just pressed into clay bricks allowed to dry, which don't last nearly as long. But! Ea-Nāṣir, for reasons which again seem to illustrate his character, kept all his shady-business correspondence under the floorboards of
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