Hattusili I
The Mitanni kingdom began, as Mirko Novák claims, a little after 1600 BC, during the Old Babylonian period, at least two generations before the sack of Babylon by the Hittites which Novák considers to have been in 1522 BC (J. Mebert´s low chronology), when a certain "King of the Hurrians," in all likelihood one of the first Mitanni rulers, appeared as one opponent of Hattusili I. But, as new excavations and radiocarbon datings in Zincirli Höyük confirm the middle chronology for Hittite king Hattusili I, (1650–1620 BC), the beginning of Mitanni realm can also be suggested to have taken place around 1650 BC. The sack of Zincirli Höyük could have been part of Hattusili I's campaign against Zalpa in order to disrupt an exchange network connected to Aleppo that previously linked the Euphrates, North Syria, and Central Anatolia.