[1] Kutha lies on the right bank of the eastern branch of the Upper Euphrates river, north of Nippur and around 25 miles northeast of the ancient cite of Babylon.

The two mounds, as is typical in the region, are separated by the dry bed of an ancient canal, probably the Shatt en-Nil but possibly the Irninna, in any case leading from the Euphrates.

[2][3] The first archaeologist to examine the site, in 1845, Henry Rawlinson, noted a brick of king Nebuchadrezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire mentioning the city of Kutha (Ku-tu), though it is not known with certainty that it was in situ.

..."[10] A foundation tablet (found in Nineveh) records that the second ruler of the Ur III empire, Shulgi, built the E-Meslam temple of Nergal at Kutha.

"Sulgi, the mighty, king of Ur and of the four quarters, builder of E-meslam ("House, Warrior of the Netherworld"), temple of the god [N]ergal, his lo[rd], in [Kuth]a.

[16] In the fragmentary Epic of Adad-shuma-usur, a Kassite dynasty ruler (c. 1200 BC), BM 34104+, he states: "He made glad his face, his dwelling, the shrine of [... ] A full month, the name he spoke, his crescent [...] He builds up the city street(s) with fill, the beginning of the festival he [...] The king came out of Borsippa and hea[ded] toward Cuthah [...] He entered E[mesl]am, in/with the ground he constantly cov[ers...] ...Cuthah [...] '[...]your [help], O Nergal, [...]'"[17] In a related, much damaged, text, BM 45684, Adad-shuma-usur states "at night-[tim]e I arrived, the wall of Cuthah ...

[20] An inscription of Neo-Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BC), found in a columnar form and as a prism at Babylon, mentions Kutha.

], Seleucus took flight and did not dam up Euphrates... [... ]"[23] The literary composition "Legend of the King of Cuthah", a fragmentary inscription of the Akkadian literary genre called narû, written as if it were transcribed from a royal stele, is in fact part of the "Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin", not to be read as history, a copy of which was found in the cuneiform library at Sultantepe, north of Harran.

II Kings relates that these settlers were attacked by lions, and interpreting this to mean that their worship was not acceptable to the deity of the land, they asked Sargon to send an Israelite priest, exiled in Assyria, to teach them, which he did.

Ibn Sa'd in his Kitab Tabaqat Al-Kubra writes that the maternal grandfather of Abraham, Karbana, was the one who discovered the river Kutha.

Thus it comes as no surprise that especially in the so-called ghulàt movements (extremist Shiites) a lot of material surfaces that is derivable from Mesopotamian sources (cf.

"Yaqut also notes, "the identification of Kutha as the original home Shiah Muslims believe to be the Abrahamic roots of Islam.