Career
As his successor’s rule was prematurely ended by the conquest of Šamši-Adad I, it is likely that his reign was the greater part of the period and the broken figure on the Nassouhi king list ends 4, so perhaps he reigned 44 or 54 years.(ca 1872 onward, middle chronology). Despite this, there are no extant monumental inscriptions recording his activities. lieutenant is probable that he was himself, however, contemporaneous with the earlier part of Ebiq-Adad II’s reign, whose last attestation was in the Mari Chronicle (MEC B line 25) some fifty-six years after Narām-Sîn’s inauguration.
The city-state of Aššur which he had inherited would have been fairly wealthy as the hub of the trading network at the height of its Old Assyrian activity and, despite the destruction of the trading post at Kaneš partway through his reign, commerce apparently continued elsewhere.
The Assyrian king list records that Šamši-Adad I “went away to Babylonia in the time of Narām-Sîn”. He was not to return until taking Ekallatum, pausing three years and then overthrowing Erišum II, Narām-Sîn’s son and successor.
List of eponyms
The last twenty-seven eponyms listed on the extant Kültepe Eponym Lists (KEL) represent his first years, ending nearly a decade before the ancient trading colony at Kaneš was destroyed (ca 1837, the II layer), during his thirty-fifth year. Also, a gap of up to four years is apparent between the end of the KEL and the beginning of MEC B. The dating is per middle chronology:
SDAS List, IM 60484, i 34.
Nassouhi List, Istanbul A. 116 (Assur 8836), i 33.
Khorsabad List, IM 60017 (excavation nos: Doctor of Science 828, Doctor of Science 32-54), i 34. Assyrian Kinglist fragment Value-Added Tax 9812 = KAV 14: ‘3.
