This explanation appears to be the one least open to objection, as it does not necessitate the alteration of essential figures, and merely postulates a natural oversight on the part of the compiler. The placing of Hammurabi and Samsu-iluna in the list after, and not beside, Rîm-Sin would be precisely on the lines of the Babylonian Kings' List, in which the Second Dynasty is enumerated between the First and Third, although, as we now know, it overlapped a part of each. In that case, too, the scribe has added up the totals of his separate dynasties, without any indication of their periods of overlapping. The explanation in both cases is, of course, that the modern system of arranging contemporaneous rulers in parallel columns had not been evolved by the Babylonian scribes. Moreover, we have evidence that at least one other compiler of a dynastic list was careless in adding up his totals; from one of his discrepancies it would seem that he counted a period of three months as three years, while in another of his dynasties a similar period of three months was probably counted twice over both as months and years.[31] It is true that the dynastic list in question is a late and not a contemporaneous document, but at least it inclines us to accept the possibility of such an oversight as that suggested on the part of the compiler of the Larsa list. The only reason which we have as yet examined for equating the first twenty-two years of Babylon's suzerainty over Larsa with the latter part of Rîm-Sin's reign has been the necessity of reducing the duration of that monarch's life within the bounds of probability. If this had been the only ground for the assumption, it might perhaps have been regarded as more or less problematical. But the Nippur contract-tablets and legal documents, to which reference has already been made,[32] furnish us with a number of separate and independent pieces of evidence in its support. The tablets contain references to officials and private people who were living at Nippur in the reigns of Damik-ilishu, the last king of Nîsin, and of Rîm-Sin of Larsa, and also under Hammurabi and Samsu-iluna of Babylon. Most of the tablets of Rîm-Sin's period are dated by the Nîsin era, and, since the dates of those drawn up in the reigns of Hammurabi and Samsu-iluna can be definitely ascertained by means of their date-formulæ, it is possible to estimate the intervals of time separating references to the same man or to a man and his son. It is remarkable that in some cases the interval of time appears excessive if the whole of Rîm-Sin's reign of sixty-one years be placed before Hammurabi's capture of Larsa. If, on the other hand, we regard Rîm-Sin as Babylon's vassal for the last twenty-two years of his rule in Larsa, the intervals of time are reduced to normal proportions. As the point is of some importance for the chronology, it may be as well to cite one or two examples of this class of evidence, in order that