[4] Since no information about her grandfather is known, and her father originally served as the governor (šakkanakkum) of Durum, which was fortified by Ishme-Dagan, it has been suggested that her family might have hailed from Isin.
[8] A letter attributed to her links her a temple located in this city dedicated jointly to Lugalirra and Meslamtaea named E-Meslam, which might be either an abbreviation of E-Meslam-melamilla ("E-Meslam which bears radiance"), which according to an inscription of her father was dedicated only to the latter of these two gods, or alternatively the name of a complex of temples.
[10] Nathan Wasserman and Yigal Bloch note that this makes it possible to assume that struggles between Old Babylonian dynasties were limited to the spheres of politics and military, and not religion.
[4] Next to Enheduanna, Ninšatapada is one of the two only female historical figures mentioned in the Old Babylonian corpus of Sumerian literary texts.
[2] However, her authorship is not entirely certain, and an alternate proposal is that the letter was composed as propaganda by scribes serving the royal court of Larsa.
[6] Alhena Gadotti argues that it was meant to familiarize trainee scribes with a tradition of appointing royal daughters to religious positions, which they in same cases were able to retain after the end of their fathers’ reigns.
[20] She notes Uruk was not a major political power at the time of the letter's composition and inclusion in the scribal school curriculum, but due to its long history it was considered culturally significant, similarly to Lagash and Ur, also well represented in similar text corpora despite no longer being major powers in the Old Babylonian period.