The ancient kings of Mesopotamia ruled one of the two great literate civilizations that set the course of the earliest history of the ancient Near East. Their temples and tombs do not evoke vivid images in the minds of the modern reader or television viewer, as do those of the other great centre of early Near Eastern civilization, Egypt. But their cities, some with such familiar names as Babylon, Nineveh, and Ur, have been excavated over the past century and a half, according to the standards of the time, and have yielded an abundance of records of the boasted accomplishments of these kings. These are the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, mostly telling of building projects and battles, all done ad maiorem gloriam deorum.