Puzur-Ashur I

Puzur-Ashur I (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.

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.) These later kings mentioned him among the kings who had renewed the city walls of Assur begun by Kikkia.

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. 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. Inscriptions link Puzur-Aššur I to his immediate successors,  who, according to the Assyrian King List, are related to the following kings down to Erišum II.

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