Shamshi-Adad I "foreign Amorite usurper by later Assyrian tradition"

Shamshi-Adad I (1808–1776 BC) was already the ruler of Terqa, and although he claimed Assyrian ancestry as a descendant of Ushpia, he is regarded as a foreign Amorite usurper by later Assyrian tradition. However, he greatly expanded the Old Assyrian Empire, incorporating the northern half of Mesopotamia, swathes of eastern and southern Anatolia, and much of the Levant into his large empire, and campaigned as far west as the eastern shores of the Mediterranean.