Surprisingly,though, the Mesopotamians rarely wrote about the afterlife. Literarydescriptions suggest that the netherworld was a gloomy place—dark, with bad food, and no way out—and there was little about itthat suggested either a reward or punishment. It simply existed.And yet, since these kings (and many commoners whose burials alsocontained gifts and food) took their worldly possessions with them,perhaps they believed that they could improve their lot in theafterlife.

The kings had, however, begun to realizeits potential for extending communication, in an almost magical way,beyond what could be accomplished with the spoken word. Writingcould perpetually and eternally address an audience on a king’sbehalf; the words were always there, even when the king was notthinking about them. Given that the population was almost entirelyilliterate, such an audience was mostly made up of gods. Thestatuette of the king’s personal god (or sometimes of the kinghimself), inscribed with the same text as the tablet, could thereforepray continuously in a way that a real person could not.

Lagash (modern Al Hiba in Iraq), hometo the god Ningirsu and to a dynasty of kings who squabbled forgenerations with their counterparts in the neighboring city-state ofUmma.

Order was maintained in the universe because the king of the godspossessed an object called the “Tablet of Destinies” on which wereinscribed theme (pronounced “may”). Theseme were never writtendown on any earthly tablet, as far as we know, for humanedification. But they encompassed all that kept chaos at bay.