Aššur, modern Qal'at Sherqat, is an Assyrian city on the western bank of the Tigris River. Named after its enigmatic tutelary deity, it was the original capital, ancestral home, and burial place of the Assyrian royal family. From the late third millennium B.C. until 614 B.C., when the city was captured and destroyed by the Medes, Aššur was Assyria's most important religious center. It was also Assyria's principal administrative center until the beginning of the 9th century, when Ashurnasirpal II (883-859) moved the capital to the newly constructed Calah.