Ila-kabkabu

The Amorite name Ila-kabkabu appears twice in the Assyrian King List:

• Ila-kabkabu is listed among the "Kings who are ancestors" (also translatable as "Kings whose fathers are known"), alongside his father, Yazkur-Ilu, and his son, Aminu. This was probably around 2000 BC.
• Ila-kabkabu is also mentioned as the father of another Assyrian king, Shamshi-Adad I. However, Shamshi-Adad I did not inherit the Assyrian throne from his father but was an Amorite conqueror. His father, Ila-kabkabu, was king not of Assyria, but of Terqa in Syria, and ruled in the time of Iagitlim of Mari. According to the Mari Eponyms Chronicle, Ila-kabkabu seized Shuprum in a certain year (possibly 18th century BC), and Shamshi-Adad "entered his father's house", i.e. succeeded him as king of Terqa, in the following year.^:163 Shamshi-Adad subsequently conquered a wide territory and became king of Assyria, where he founded a dynasty.

Arising from the two appearances of the name "Ila-kabkabu" in two different places on the list, the "Kings who are ancestors" section has often, though not universally been considered a list of Shamshi-Adad's ancestors. In keeping with this assumption, scholars have inferred that the original form of the Assyrian Kinglist was written, among other things, as an "attempt to justify that Shamshi-Adad was a legitimate ruler of the city-state Assur and to obscure his non-Assyrian antecedents by incorporating his ancestors into a native Assyrian genealogy". According to this interpretation, both instances of the name would refer to the same man, Shamshi-Adad's father, whose line would have been interpolated into the list. However, the name might also refer to two distinct, though possibly related, individuals.