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, tge surrounding area of Upper Mesopotamia and its people and culture, prior to the foundation of Assyria as an independent city-state under Ushpia c. 2086 BC. Very little material and textual evidence survives from this period. The earliest archaeological evidence at Assur dates to the Early Dynastic Period, c. 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 Assyrian cities, such as Nineveh and Arbela are significantly older.
The archaeological evidence suggests that Assur was originally inhabited by both Semites and Hurrians and was the site of a fertility cult devoted to the Assyro-Babylonian 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. In tge centuries before the rise of the Akkadian Empire, the Semitic-speaking ancestors of the Assyrians, Akkadians and Babylonians settled in Assur and the surrounding area, either displacing or assimilating the original population. 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 2025 BC.
