It will be noted that the new list of the kings of Larsa, important as it undoubtedly is for the history of its own period, does not in itself supply the long-desired link between the earlier and the later chronology of Babylonia. The relationship of the First Dynasty of Babylon with that of Nîsin[11] is, so far as the new list is concerned, left in the same state of uncertainty as before. The possibility has long been foreseen that the Dynasty of Nîsin and the First Dynasty of Babylon overlapped each other,[12] as was proved to have been the case with the first dynasties in the Babylonian List of Kings, and as was confidently assumed with regard to the dynasties of Larsa and Babylon. That no long interval separated the two dynasties from one another had been inferred from the character of the contract-tablets, dating from the period of the Nîsin Dynasty, which had been found at Nippur; for these were seen to bear a elose resemblance to those of the First Babylonian Dynasty in form, material, writing, and terminology.[13] There were obvious advantages to be obtained, if grounds could be produced for believing that the two dynasties were not only closely consecutive but were partly contemporaneous. For, in such a case, it would follow that not only the earlier kings of Babylon, but also the kings of Larsa, would have been reigning at the same time as the later kings of Nîsin. In fact, we should picture Babylonia as still divided into a number of smaller principalities, each vying with the other in a contest for the hegemony and maintaining a comparatively independent rule within its own borders. It was fully recognized that such a condition of affairs would amply account for the confusion in the later succession at Nîsin, and our scanty knowledge of that period could then be combined with the fuller sources of information on the First Dynasty of Babylon.[14]