Old Assyrian Empire as "anchors" in the various attempts to define the chronology of Babylonia and Assyria between c. 2000 BC – c. 1300 BC.) Ashur-nadin-ahhe I (c. 1430 BC – c. 1415 BC), son and successor of Ashur-rabi I, was courted by the Egyptian Empire, which was a rival of the Mitanni, and attempting to gain a foothold in the Ancient Near East. Amenhotep II sent the Assyrian king a tribute of gold to seal an alliance against the Mitanni. It is likely that this alliance prompted Saushtatar, the ruler of the Mitanni, to invade Assyria, and sack its capital city, after
Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire the cities, which became overpopulated. Roman cities were only designed to hold a certain number of people, and once they passed that, disease, water shortage and food shortage became common. Publishing several articles in the 1960s, the sociologist Seabury Colum Gilfillan advanced the argument that lead poisoning was a significant factor in the decline of the Roman Empire. Later, a posthumously published book elaborated on Gilfillan's work on this topic. Jerome Nriagu, a geochemist, argued in a 1983 book that "lead poisoning contributed to the decline of the Roman empire." His work centred on the level to which the ancient