[2] While she was a major deity in the Mesopotamian pantheon and the worship of her is attested from all periods of history of Mesopotamia, her character was largely "passive and supportive" according to Joan Goodnick Westenholz.

[13] Proposed identities of this animal include the greylag goose and the whooper swan,[11] but it is assumed that even in Ur, statues of a goddess accompanied by a water bird of the genus Anserini, well known from excavations, were more likely to represent Nanshe.

[16] This type of depictions was meant to display the intimate nature of the connection between the deities and highlight their ability to act in unison, and is also attested for Bau and Ningirsu.

[18] Ningal's mother was Ningikuga (Sumerian: "lady of the pure reed"), as attested in a balbale composition and in an emesal love song.

[11] A derivative of Ningal were regarded as married to other moon gods in Hurrian (Kušuḫ or Umbu), Hittite (Arma) and Ugaritic (Yarikh) sources.

[11] Due to her identification with Ishtar, the Hurrian and Elamite goddess Pinikir is referred to as a daughter of Sin and Ningal in a text written in Akkadian but found in a corpus of Hurro-Hittite rituals.

[5] In a Maqlû incantation, Manzat (Akkadian and Elamite goddess of the rainbow) appears as the sister of Shamash, and by extension as daughter of his parents, Ningal and her husband.

[27] It is possible that the deity Nin-é.NIM.ma, best attested in texts from Larsa and the Sealand, was associated with Ningal as a member of her entourage starting with the reign of Kudur-Mabuk and his successors, though it has also been proposed that this name was her epithet.

[4] A temple dedicated to Ningal was located in Ur, and could be referred with the ceremonial Sumerian names Egarku and Agrunku ("house, sacred boudoir").

[30] A limestone bowl dedicated to Ningal by Ur-Nammu's daughter En-nirgal-ana [pl], who served as the en priestess of Nanna, has also been discovered.

[9] Shu-Ilishu of Isin mentions Ningal in a curse formula in an inscription found in Ur commemorating the recovery of the statue of Nanna from Anshan.

[42] Additionally a bīt ḫilṣi ("house of pressing"), assumed to be a pharmacy accompanied by a garden where the ingredients for various medicines were grown) located in the same city in this period was associated with Ningal.

[6] According to inscriptions of Nabonidus, during the repairs undertaken at his orders in the Eḫulḫul the temple was provided with refurbished statues of its divine inhabitants, including Sin, Ningal, Nuska and Sadarnunna.

[45] Harran most likely influenced the Aramaic center of the cult of Ningal, known from sources from the first millennium BCE, Nereb (Al-Nayrab) located in the proximity of Aleppo.

[9] According to the so-called Nippur Compendium, she was worshiped in this city in the local temple of Nanna,[47] as well as in a sanctuary referred to as bīt dalīli ("house of praise") alongside Nisaba, Kusu, Shamash and Bēl-ālīya.

[55] References to veneration of Ningal in the Old Babylonian period are also available from multiple other cities, including Babylon, Isin, Kisurra, Larsa, Tutub and Urum.

[60] One of the inscriptions of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon commemorates the construction of a temple dedicated jointly to Ningal, Sin, Shamash and Aya in Nineveh.

[64] The king implored her in an inscription to intercede with her husband to grant him a long life and to guarantee his successors will continue to rule over "every inhabited region forever".

[73] The cult of Ningal spread from Mesopotamia to other areas, including Hurrian kingdoms such as Kizzuwatna, as well as Ugarit and the Hittite Empire, where she developed into Nikkal.

[77] Non-Hurrian non-Ugaritic attestations of Nikkal from areas where West Semitic languages were spoken in the second and first millennia BCE are very infrequent, though it might be the result of preservation bias.

[79] In the east Ningal is attested in Akkadian theophoric names from Susa in Elam, with the oldest examples occurring in sources from the Sargonic period.

[80] Additionally, a chapel dedicated to her was maintained there by an Akkadian-speaking family, possibly originally brought to the city as prisoners of war after the Elamite conquest of Ur.