Although the Old Babylonians were an alien1 nation, they had lived long enough in close contact with the Sumerians to be influenced profoundly by them. They had no culture of their own worthy of the name when they came into the valley, and in general they simply appropriated2 what the Sumerians had already developed. With so excellent a foundation to build upon, they should have made remarkable progress; but such was not the case.When they ended their history, the state of civilization in the Tigris Euphrates valley was little more advanced than when they began.……