Puzur-Ashur I

Puzur Ashur I was an Assyrian king who ruled around 2000 BC.

He is known only from his place in the Assyrian king list and from references in the inscriptions of later kings (his son and successor Shalim-ahum and the much later Ashur-rim-nisheshu and Shalmaneser III).^[1] These later kings mentioned him among the kings who had renewed the city walls begun by Kikkia.^[2]

Puzur Ashur may have started a native Assyrian dynasty that endured for eight generations until Erishum II was overthrown by the Amorite Shamshi-Adad I. His clearly Assyrian name (meaning "servant of Ashur") distinguishes him from his three immediate predecessors on the Assyrian Kinglist, who possibly bore non-Semitic names,^[3] and from the earlier, Amorite-named "Kings who are ancestors" (also translatable as "Kings whose fathers are known"), often interpreted as a list of Shamshi-Adad's ancestors.^[4] Hildegard Levy, writing in the Cambridge Ancient History, rejects this interpretation and sees Puzzur-Ashur as part of a longer dynasty started by one of his predecessors, Sulili.^[2] Inscriptions link Puzur Ashur to his immediate successors,^[1][5] who, according to the Kinglist, are related to the following kings down to Erishum II.

The Assyrian Kinglist omits Zariqum, who is known from inscriptions to have been governor (ensi) of Assur for the Third Dynasty of Ur under Amar-Sin; this Zariqum (whose name is Semitic) is sometimes placed by scholars immediately before Puzur-Asshur, and following Akiya.

Puzur-ashur's successors bore the title išši’ak aššur, vice regent of Assur, as well as ensi.^[6]

References

1. Albert Kirk Grayson (1972). Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, Volume 1. Otto Harrassowitz. pp. 6, 8, 12, 15.
2. Hildegard Levy, "Assyria c. 2600-1816 B.C.", Cambridge Ancient History. Volume 1, Part 2: Early History of the Middle East, 729-770, p. 746-747.
3. Arthur Ungnad interpreted these names as Hurrian (BA VI, 5, S. 13) but Ungnad's thesis can no longer be sustained nowadays and was rejected as unconvincing by Arno Poebel ("The Assyrian King List from Khorsabad", Journal of Near Eastern Studies 1/3, 1942, 253) as early as 1942.
4. Meissner, Bruno (1990). Reallexikon der Assyriologie 6. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 101–102. ISBN 3110100517.
5. Albert Kirk Grayson (2002). Assyrian Rulers. Volume 1: 1114 – 859 BC. p. 14.
6. Barbara Cifola (1995). Analysis of variants in the Assyrian royal titulary from the origins to Tiglath-Pileser III. Istituto universitario orientale. p. 8.