It will thus be seen that the population of Babylonia 2000 years before Christ had a considerable admixture of west Semites, many of whom would come under the designation of Amorites; besides other nationalities, such as Armenians or people of Aram-Naharaim (Mesopotamia)--at least two tablets refer exclusively to transactions between members of this northern race--Sutites, and Gutites, who were low-class people seemingly light-haired, "fair Gutian slaves" being in one place spoken of.
Life in Babylonia at this early period must have been exceedingly primitive, and differed considerably, as the East does even now, from what we in Europe are accustomed to. The city of which we can get the best idea, Sippar, the Sippara of the Greeks, generally regarded (though probably wrongly) as the Sepharvaim of the Bible, now represented by the mounds known as Abu-habbah, whence most of the early contract-tablets revealing to us the daily life of these ancient Babylonians came, was situated on the Euphrates, "the life of the land." The name of this river is written, when phonetically rendered, by the characters Purattu (probably really pronounced Phuraththu), in Akkadian Pura-nunu, "the great water-channel," often expressed (and then, of course, not phonetically) with characters meaning "the river of Sippar," showing in what estimation the ancient Babylonians held both river and city. The mound of Abu-habbah is four miles from the river Euphrates, and situated, in reality, on the canal called Nahr-Malka, "the royal river," which runs through it; but the tablets of the period of which we are now speaking refer not only to the city itself, but to the district all round from the Tigris on the east to the Euphrates on the west.
The following paragraph from Mr. Rassam's _Asshur and the Land of Nimrod_ will give a fair idea of what this district is like:--
"It is most interesting to examine this canal (the Nahr-Malka) all the way between the Euphrates and the Tigris, as it shows the magnitude of the Babylonian agricultural industry in days gone by, when it irrigated hundreds of miles of rich alluvial soil. The remains of countless large and small watercourses, which intersect the country watered by those two branches(23) of Nahr-Malka, are plainly seen even now. Vestiges of prodigious basins are also visible, wherein a surplus supply must have been kept for any emergency, especially when the water of the Euphrates falls low in summer."