We know of two more members of the family of Kashtiliash, who carried on his line at Babylon. For Abi-rattash was succeeded by his son and grandson, Tashshi-gurumash and Agum-kakrime, of whom the latter has left us the record already referred to, commemorating his recovery of the statues of Marduk and Sarpanitum from the land of Khanî.[11] And then there occurs a great break in our knowledge of the history of Babylon. For a period extending over some thirteen reigns, from about the middle of the seventeenth to the close of the fifteenth century B.C., our native evidence is confined to a couple of brief records, dating from the latter half of the interval, and to one or two historical references in later texts. By their help we have recovered the names of a few of the missing kings, though their relative order, and in one or two cases even their existence, are still matters of controversy. In fact, were we dependent solely upon Babylonian sources, our knowledge of the country's history, even when we can again establish the succession, would have been practically a blank. But, thanks in great part to the commercial relations established with Syria since the age of the West-Semitic kings, the influence of Babylonian culture had travelled far afield. Her method of writing on the convenient and imperishable clay tablet had been adopted by other nations of Western Asia, and her language had become the _lingua franca_ of the ancient world. After her conquest of Canaan, Egypt had become an Asiatic power, and had adopted the current method of international intercourse for communication with other great states and with her own provinces in Canaan. And thus it has come about that some of our most striking information on the period has come to us, not from Babylon itself, but from Egypt.