The change in the course of the Euphrates has been far more marked, the position of its original bed being indicated by the mounds covering the sites of early cities, which extend through the country along the practically dry beds of the Shatt en-Nîl and the Shatt el-Kâr, considerably to the east of its present channel. The mounds of Abû Habba, Tell Ibrâhîm, El-Ohêmir and Niffer, marking the sites of the important cities of Sippar, Cutha, Kish[6] and Nippur, all lie to the east of the river, the last two on the ancient bed of the Shatt en-Nîl. Similarly, the course of the Shatt el-Kâr, which formed an extension of the Shatt en-Nîl below Sûk el-'Afej passes the mounds of Abû Hatab (Kisurra), Fâra (Shuruppak) and Hammâm. Warka (Erech) stands on a further continuation of the Shatt en-Nîl,[7] while still more to the eastward are the mounds of Bismâya and Jôkha, representing the cities of Adab and Umma.[8] Senkera, the site of Larsa, also lies considerably to the east of the present stream, and the only city besides Babylon which now stands comparatively near the present bed of the Euphrates is Ur. The positions of the ancient cities would alone be sufficient proof that, since the early periods of Babylonian history, the Euphrates has considerably changed its course. Abundant evidence that this was the case is furnished by the contemporary inscriptions that have been recovered. The very name of the Euphrates was expressed by an ideogram signifying "the River of Sippar," from which we may infer that Sippar originally stood upon its banks. A Babylonian contract of the period of the First Dynasty is dated in the year in which Samsu-iluna constructed the wall of Kish "on the bank of the Euphrates,"[9] proving that either the main stream from Sippar, or a branch from Babylon, flowed by El-Ohêmir. Still further south the river at Nippur, marked as at El-Ohêmir by the dry bed of the Shatt en-Nîl, is termed "the Euphrates of Nippur," or simply "the Euphrates" on contract-tablets found upon the site.[10] Moreover, the city of Shurippak or Shuruppak, the native town of Ut-napishtim, is described by him in the Gilgamesh epic as lying "on the bank of the Euphrates"; and Hammurabi, in one of his letters to Sin-idinnam, bids him clear out the stream of the Euphrates "from Larsa as far as Ur."[11] These references in the early texts cover practically the whole course of the ancient bed of the Euphrates, and leave but a few points open to conjecture.