| Puzur-Ashur I | |
| Išši’ak Aššur | |
| Reign: | 2025 BC – unknown |
| Birth Date: | 21st century BCE |
| Birth Place: | Assyria (Modern-day Iraq) |
| Death Date: | 1970 BCE |
| Death Place: | Assyria (Modern-day Iraq) |
| Burial Place: | Assur |
| Predecessor: | Akiya (?) |
| Successor: | Shalim-ahum |
| Occupation: | sovereign |
Puzur-Ashur I (akk|{{cuneiform|) 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, 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] 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. 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,[4] 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.[5]