The conquest of the Khabur River valley region by the Amorite king Shamshi-Adad I, who lived from about 1765 BC to 1700 BCE, had revived the abandoned site of Shekhna, present Tell Leilan.
Shamshi-Adad, seeing the great potential in the rich agricultural production of the region, had made it the capital city of his northern Mesopotamian kingdom and renamed it from Shekhna to Shubat-Enlil, meaning "the residence of the god Enlil" in the Akkadian language.
A royal palace has been built and a temple acropolis to which a straight paved street leads from the city gate.
There is also a planned residential area and the entire city is enclosed by a wall.
Shubat-Enlil, covering about ninety hectares, or more than two hundred and twenty-two acres, may have a population of twenty thousand people at its peak.
Shamshi-Adad’s eventual conquest of the fortress of Ekallatum on the left bank of the Tigris had made it possible for him to control the city-state of Assur, a flourishing city that trades heavily with Anatolia.
His rise to glory had earned him the envy of neighboring kings and tribes, and throughout his reign, he and his sons had faced several threats to their control.
While Ishme-Dagan, whom his father had placed on the throne of Ekallatum, probably was a competent ruler, his brother Yasmah-Adad, charged with the rule of Mari, appears to have been a man of weak character.
Shamshi-Adad had continued to strengthen his kingdom throughout his life, but upon his death it soon began to crumble.
The empire lacks cohesion and is in a vulnerable geographical position.
When the news of Shamshi-Adad's death spread, his old rivals at once set out to topple his sons from the throne.
Yasmah-Adad had been expelled from Mari in 1779 by Zimrilim, the son and heir of the previous ruler, and the rest of the empire would soon be lost to Hammurabi of Babylon.
