Ila-kabkabu
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The Amorite name Ila-kabkabu appears twice in the Assyrian King List:[1]
- Ila-kabkabu (Akkadian: 𒀭𒆏𒅗𒁉, romanized: ILA-KAB-ka-bi) appears within the Assyrian King List[1] among the “kings whose fathers are known” (alongside both: Ila-kabkabu's father and predecessor, Yazkur-el; Ila-kabkabu's son and successor, Aminu),[1]
- Ila-kabkabu of Terqa is also mentioned as the father of one other king named within the Assyrian King List: Šamši-Adad I.[1] Šamši-Adad I had not inherited the Assyrian throne from his father, but had instead been a conqueror. Ila-kabkabu had been an Amorite king not of Aššur (within Assyria), instead; Ila-kabkabu had been king of Terqa (within Syria) during the same time as that of the King Iagitlim of Mari (also within Syria.) According to the Mari Eponyms Chronicle, Ila-kabkabu had seized Shuprum (possibly c. 1790 BC), then Šamši-Adad I had, “entered his father's house,” (e.g.. Šamši-Adad I had succeeded Ila-kabkabu as the king of Terqa, within the following year.)[1]:163 Šamši-Adad I had subsequently conquered a wide territory and had emerged as the king of Assyria, where he had founded an Amorite dynasty.
Arising from the two appearances of the name "Ila-kabkabu" within two different places of the Assyrian King List, the “kings whose fathers are known” section has often, although not universally[2] been considered a list of Šamši-Adad I's ancestors.[3] In keeping with this assumption, scholars have inferred that the original form of the Assyrian King List had been written among other things as an, “attempt to justify that Šamši-Adad I was a legitimate ruler of the city-state Aššur and to obscure his non-Assyrian antecedents by incorporating his ancestors into a native Assyrian genealogy.”[3] According to this interpretation, both instances of the name would refer to the same man, Šamši-Adad I's father, whose line would have been interpolated into the list.