The Early Assyrian period was the earliest stage of Assyrian history, preceding the Old Assyrian period and covering the history of the city of Assur and surrounding areas of Upper Mesopotamia, and its people and culture, prior to the foundation of Assyria as an independent city-state under Puzur-Ashur I 2025 BC. Very little material and textual evidence survives from this period. The earliest archaeological evidence at Assur dates to the Early Dynastic Period, 2600 BC, but the city may have been founded even earlier since the area had been inhabited for thousands of years prior and other nearby cities, such as Nineveh, are significantly older.
The archaeological evidence suggests that Assur was originally inhabited by Hurrians as well as Semites and was the site of a fertility cult devoted to the Assyrian goddess Ishtar. The name "Assur" is not historically attested prior to the age of the Akkadian Empire in the 24th century BC; it is possible that the city was originally named Baltil, used in later times to refer to its oldest portion. From approximately 3000 BC, centuries before the rise of the Akkadian Empire in the 24th Century BC, the Semitic-speaking ancestors of the Assyrians, Akkadians and Babylonians settled in Assur and throughout Mesopotamia, either displacing or assimilating earlier populations. Founded in a both holy and strategic location, the city itself was gradually deified during the Early Assyrian period and eventually became personified as the god Ashur, firmly established as the Assyrian national deity by the time of Puzur-Ashur I in the late 21st century BC.
There is no evidence so far discovered that Assur was independent at any point in the Early Assyrian period. Throughout the centuries prior to Puzur-Ashur I or Ushpia in the early 21st Century BC, it is instead evident that the city was dominated by a sequence of powerful states and empires from southern Mesopotamia. In the Early Dynastic Period, Assur and other Assyrian cities experienced considerable Sumerian influence, and for a time fell under the hegemony of the Sumerian city of Kish. In the 24th to 22nd centuries BC, the city was part of the Akkadian Empire as an administrative centre in northern Mesopotamia, a time later Akkadian speaking Assyrian kings saw as a golden age. In the final geopolitical stage preceding Assur's independence, the city became a peripheral city within the Sumerian empire of the Third Dynasty of Ur ( 2112–2004 BC).
History Origins of Assur
Agricultural villages in the region that would later become Assyria are known to have existed by the time of the Hassuna culture, 6300–5800 BC. The city of Assur was probably founded at some point in the Early Dynastic Period ( 2900–2350 BC), or perhaps earlier, though there is no evidence of the city being an independent state prior to the time of Puzur-Ashur I, who ruled 2025 BC, although independent rule is credited in later Assyrian annals to have begun with Ushpia some sixty or so years earlier. The earliest archaeological evidence known from Assur predates the Akkadian Empire by only a few centuries, being from 2600 BC or 2500 BC. At this time, the surrounding region was already relatively urbanized, a development that might perhaps have resulted from being influenced by the heavily urbanized southern Mesopotamia. Archaeological evidence from the Early Dynastic Period is in general far more scarce in northern Mesopotamia, including around Assur, than in southern Mesopotamia. Much of the early historical remains of Assur may have been destroyed during the extensive construction projects of later Assyrian kings, who worked to create level foundations for the buildings they erected in the city. Very little concrete information is known about Assur in the early period, and most researchers do not treat the city as liable for much historical analysis until the Old Assyrian period, initiated by Puzur-Ashur I.
Early Assur was probably a local religious and tribal center, suggested by the early presence of temples at the site. The presence of monumental temples suggests that there was a town of some size surrounding the temples, and that the site was not just a small cult place. Assur was built in a highly strategic location; on a hill overlooking the Tigris river, protected by a river on one side and a canal on another. The region was however relatively arid, located just north of the artificially irrigated lands of southern Mesopotamia.
Later Assyrian kings used the name "Baltil" or "Baltila" to refer to the earliest portion of Assur, or perhaps to a preceding settlement in the same location. "Baltila" is a name of Hurrian origin, attested as a personal name among Hurrians near the city of Nuzi. According to a stele erected by the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus some two thousand years later, Baltila was the capital of the land of Subir. Subir, which also appears in the variants Subar and Subartu, is attested as a name for the land surrounding Assur, but the later Assyrians rarely used it. The reason for the name being dropped in later times appears to be that it took on a derogatory meaning: during the Old Babylonian Empire ( 1894–1595 BC), so many slaves were imported from "Subartu" that "Subarian" in effect became a synonym for "slave".
Political history During much of the early Assyrian period, Assur and Upper Mesopotamia was dominated by states and polities from southern Mesopotamia. The city was occupied by the Akkadian Empire and then the Third Dynasty of Ur. Prior to this, Assur had also for a time been one of the many Mesopotamian cities under the loose hegemony of the Sumerian city of Kish.
Under the Akkadian Empire The Akkadian Empire probably conquered Assur in the reign of its first ruler, Sargon ( 2334–2279 BC), and is known to have controlled the city at least from the reign of Manishtushu ( 2270–2255 BC) onwards, as contemporary inscriptions dedicated to Manishtushu have been recovered from the city. One inscription dedicated to Manishtushu was inscribed on the bronze point of a spear by Azazu, a local ruler of Assur who was the Akkadian king's vassal. Azazu's inscription was also dedicated to a deity, but the name, perhaps Ashur, is not clearly preserved. Texts of the Akkadian period from Nuzi illustrate that Assur was an important local outpost and administrative center under the Akkadian Empire, frequently staffed with Akkadian officials. A palace, similar to a palace built by the Akkadian king Naram-Sin at Tell Brak, was also constructed in the city.
The earliest inscription known from Assur, preceding that of Azazu, was made by the Išši'ak Aššur (governor of Assur) Ititi, son of a man called Ininlaba. Ititi was presumably also an Akkadian vassal. Both the Semitic names Ititi and Ininlaba are also attested in Nuzi. The Ititi attested at Nuzi, perhaps the same man as the Assyrian governor, was one of the ablest generals of Sargon of Akkad. In his inscription, Ititi dedicates the "booty" of Gasur (a city possibly identical with Nuzi) to the goddess Ishtar. That Ititi evidently raided Nuzi testifies to a somewhat lacking Akkadian central control in the region; had the Akkadian kings firmly and directly ruled both cities it is unlikely that they would have been able to raid each other. The period of Akkadian rule over Assur strongly influenced the culture of Assyria in the millennia thereafter. Whereas the Akkadian kings were later despised by the Babylonians in southern Mesopotamia as an affront to Babylon's god Marduk, the Assyrians remembered the period as a golden age and many later Assyrian kings later emulated the Akkadian rulers. Assyria's status as a prominent trading city, well-established in the later Old Assyrian period with trading colonies (Karums) as far north as Anatolia, may have begun under the Akkadian kings, as their conquests opened up new opportunities for trade.
There is archaeological and literary evidence that Assur's golden age under the Akkadian kings came to a violent end. The remains of temples from the early period at both Assur and Nineveh indicate that they were violently destroyed. According to the later Babylonian text Legend of Naram-Sin, a strange-looking army of the Lullubi invaded the northern parts of the Akkadian Empire before continuing southwards and eventually reaching Babylon itself, amthough at this time Babylon was only a small town. Archaeological evidence of Naram-Sin's palace at Tell Brak demonstrate that it was also sacked. According to the Assyriologist Hildegard Lewy, it can thus be assumed that the Lullubi did in fact invade Mesopotamia and sacked Assur at this time.
Under the Third Dynasty of Ur
Assur was restored at some point after its destruction by the Lullubi. The Akkadian Empire collapsed in the early 22nd century BC, probably due to rebellions in southern Mesopotamia and the invasions from the eastern Gutians. What impact the collapse of the empire had on Assur cannot be determined from the surviving evidence, but other sources indicate that much of Mesopotamia again fractured into small city-states, perhaps including Assur itself.
Within a century of the Akkadian Empire's collapse, southern Mesopotamia was reunited by the Sumerian Third Dynasty of Ur ( 2112–2004 BC). The rulers of Ur were not as concerned about northern Mesopotamia as the Akkadians had been, but they did conduct campaigns and conquests in the region and established control over Assur. Unlike the south, which they ruled directly, peripheral cities such as Assur were placed under the rule of local governors. The military administration of governors ensured loyalty and tribute. In the ruins of one of Assur's temples, dedicated to Ishtar, an inscription written by the Assyrian governor (šakkanakkum) Zariqum states that he founded a new temple in the city, dedicated to the goddess Bēlat-ekallim (i.e. Ninegal), for the life of Amar-Sin ( 2046–2037 BC), king of Ur.
The period of Sumerian dominance of Assur came to an end as the last king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, Ibbi-Sin ( 2028–2004 BC) lost his administrative grip on the peripheral regions of his empire and Assur became an independent city-state under its own rulers, beginning with Ushpia 2090 BC.
Early names in the Assyrian King List
Though there is no evidence of independent Assyrian rule during the early period, the Assyrian King List, a much later document listing the sequence of Assyrian rulers, lists 29 kings prior to Puzur-Ashur, unverified by contemporary sources. At least portions of this sequence is likely entirely invented, as many of the names of the earliest rulers rhyme (suggesting an invented pattern), and the names do not match the names of known governors of Assur under the Akkadian and Neo-Sumerian empires. Perhaps the sequence was invented in an attempt to create a legitimate "prehistory" by one of the later Assyrian kings. Given that the earliest rulers are described as "kings who lived in tents", they, if real, may not have ruled Assur at all but rather have been tribal chieftains somewhere in its vicinity who eventually seized the throne. This nomadic origin fits poorly with the archaeological record from Assur and neighboring sites, which instead indicates intense agriculture and early urbanization. As in the Sumerian King List, several names, if real, may also have belonged to rulers who were contemporaries/rivals, rather than successors and predecessors of one another.