Puzur-Ashur I

Puzur-Ashur I
Išši’ak Aššur
Reignc. 2025 BC – unknown
PredecessorAkiya (?)
SuccessorShalim-ahum
Born21st century BCE
Assyria (Modern-day Iraq)
Died1970 BCE
Assyria (Modern-day Iraq)
Burial
Assur
Occupationsovereign

Puzur-Ashur I (Akkadian: 𒁍𒀫𒀸𒋩, romanized: Pu-AMAR-Aš-ŠUR) was an Assyrian king in the 21st and 20th centuries BC. He is generally regarded as the founder of Assyria as an independent city-state, c. 2025 BC.[1]

He is in the Assyrian King List and is referenced in the inscriptions of later kings (his son and successor Shalim-ahum and the later Ashur-rim-nisheshu and Shalmaneser III.)[2]: 6, 8, 12, 15  These later kings mentioned him among the kings who had renewed the city walls of Assur begun by Kikkia.[3]

Puzur-Ashur I may have started a native Assyrian dynasty that endured for eight generations until Erishum II was overthrown by the Amorite Shamshi-Adad I.[citation needed] Hildegard Lewy, writing in the Cambridge Ancient History, rejects this interpretation and sees Puzur-Aššur I as part of a longer dynasty started by one of his predecessors, Sulili.[3] Inscriptions link Puzur-Aššur I to his immediate successors,[2]: 7–8 [4] who, according to the Assyrian King List, are related to the following kings down to Erišum II.[2]: 14 

Puzur-Ashur I's successors bore the title Išši’ak Aššur, vice regent of Assur, as well as ensí.[5]

  1. ^ Aubet, Maria Eugenia (2013). Commerce and Colonization in the Ancient Near East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 276. ISBN 978-0521514170.
  2. ^ a b c Albert Kirk Grayson (1972). Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, Volume 1. Otto Harrassowitz.
  3. ^ a b Hildegard Lewy, "Assyria c. 2600-1816 B.C.", Cambridge Ancient History. Volume 1, Part 2: Early History of the Middle East, 729-770, p. 746-747.
  4. ^ Albert Kirk Grayson (2002). Assyrian Rulers. Volume 1: 1114 – 859 BC. p. 14.
  5. ^ Barbara Cifola (1995). Analysis of variants in the Assyrian royal titulary from the origins to Tiglath-Pileser III. Istituto universitario orientale. p. 8.