Coordinates 36°21'34?N 43°09'10?E? / ?36.35944, 43.15278Ancient Nineveh's mound-ruins (36°22'N 43°09'E), Kouyunjik and Nabi Yunus are located on a level part of the plain near the junction of the Tigris and the Khosr Rivers within an 1,800-acre (7&_160;km2) area circumscribed by a 12&_160;kilometres (7.5&_160;mi) brick rampart. This whole extensive space is now one immense area of ruins overlaid in parts by new suburbs of the city of Mosul.
Nineveh was an important junction for commercial routes crossing the Tigris. Occupying a central position on the great highway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, thus uniting the East and the West, wealth flowed into it from many sources, so that it became one of the greatest of all the region's ancient cities.[1]
Texts from the Hellenistic period and later offered an eponymous Ninus as the founder of Nineveh. The historic Nineveh is mentioned about 1800 BC as a centre of worship of Ishtar, whose cult was responsible for the city's early importance. The goddess' statue was sent to Pharaoh Amenhotep III of Egypt in the 14th century BC, by orders of the king of Mitanni. The city of Nineveh was one of Mitanni's vassals until the mid 14th century BC, when the Assyrian kings of Assur seized it.[2]
