This important Mesopotamian city flanks the eastern edge of the Tigris flood plain, opposite modern Mosul, of which it is now a suburb. From the third millennium B.C. onwards, Nineveh was the most important religious center of the goddess Ištar in the area that would become the Assyrian heartland. Starting in the Middle Assyrian period, the city came under the authority of the kings of Assyria, who often sponsored large-scale building activities there. However, it was not until 704 B.C. that Nineveh became the administrative capital of Assyria, when the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib moved the royal family and court there and transformed the city into a thriving imperial metropolis. Nineveh remained Assyria’s capital until 612 B.C., when it was captured and destroyed by a Babylonian-Median collation led by Nabopolassar and Cyaxares. The visible remains of the (7th-century) Assyrian city include the citadel mound Kuyunjik, the smaller mound of Nebi Yunus, and the twelve-kilometer-long city wall.