Outside Mesopotamia her name was used to logographically represent these of other gods, not necessarily similar to her in character, including Syrian Dagan, Hurrian Kumarbi and Hittite Ḫalki.

[7] The widely accepted reading, Nisaba, has been confirmed by Akkadian lexical texts spelling the name syllabically as ni-sa-ba.

[8] The reading Nidaba, originally favored by some Assyriologists, for example Miguel Civil, now regarded as implausible, as the evidence is very scant, and might simply constitute recurring scribal errors.

[19] Piotr Michalowski describes Nisaba as "the goddess of grain and the scribal arts in the widest sense of this word, including writing, accounting and surveying.

[1] In the texts forming the curriculum of scribal schools she is the deity most commonly associated with literacy, numeracy and related implements.

[21] Due to her primary function Wilfred G. Lambert regarded her gender as unusual, noting that "female scribes were very rare" in historical records.

[29] The Curse of Agade lists her among the most prominent deities, alongside Sin, Enki, Inanna, Ninurta, Ishkur and Nuska.

[33] It has been proposed that some depictions of so-called "vegetation deities" known from the art of the Early Dynastic and Akkadian periods are representations of Nisaba.

[34][35] For example, it is commonly assumed that the goddess with stalks of vegetation decorating her crown, depicted on a fragment of a stone vase, likely from Girsu (presently in the Pergamon Museum), is Nisaba.

[17] The goddess Ninimma, regarded as the personal scribe of Enlil,[36] was sometimes associated with[37] and possibly acquired some of the characteristics of Nisaba[36] due to fulfilling a similar role in the pantheon of Nippur.

[15] Compared to other divine couples (Shamash and Aya, Ishkur and Shala, Ninsianna and Kabta, Enki and Damkina, Lugalbanda and Ninsun and others) they are invoked together extremely rarely in seal inscriptions, with only one example presently known.

[47] Wilfred G. Lambert notes that the text "seems to imply a desire not to have Anu as Nisaba's father,"[47] though attestations of the sky god in this role are nonetheless known from other sources.

[43][44] Nabu gradually replaced Nisaba as a deity of writing[31] in what has been described by Julia M. Asher-Greve as "the most prominent case of a power transferred to a god from a goddess" in Mesopotamian history.

In the Old Babylonian and early Kassite periods Nabu’s cult was only popular in central Mesopotamia (Babylon, Sippar, Kish, Dilbat, Lagaba), had a limited extent in peripheral areas (Susa in Elam, Mari in Syria) and there is little to no evidence of it from cities such as Ur and Nippur.

[31] Andrew R. George assumes the reason why Nabu replaced Nisaba, while other deities associated with writing did not, was due to the generalized character of his connection to this art.

[50] He points out that while Ninimma and Ninurta were also associated with writing, the former occupied a different niche from Nisaba (which he compares to them functioning as a librarian and as a scribe or scholar, respectively), while the latter was only a divine scribe as an extension of his role as the archetypal good son helping his elderly father with his various duties (in this case - writing down Enlil's judgments on the Tablet of Destinies).

[53] In theological texts, both Kumarbi and Dagan were compared to each other and Enlil rather than Nisaba due to all three of them playing the role of “father of gods” in their respective pantheons.

[7] Eresh was her original cult center,[4] and there is evidence it was a city of considerable importance in the Early Dynastic times, including a reference to a possible king (lugal).

[56] She was worshiped in Shuruppak,[57] Urukagina of Lagash left behind inscriptions in which he refers to her,[57] while Lugalzagesi of Umma considered her his personal tutelary deity, and described himself as her high priest (lu-maḫ).

[20] In letters from the Old Babylonian period, Nisaba appears less often than the most popular goddesses (Ishtar, Ninsianna, Aya, Annunitum, Sarpanit, Gula) but more commonly than Ninlil or Nanshe.

"[70] While references to Nisaba are known from texts from Ebla, Emar, Ugarit and Mari, it is uncertain whether she had an active, official cult anywhere outside Babylonia with the exception of the last of the aforementioned cities,[3] where she is present on offering lists most likely dated to the reign of Yahdun-Lim or earlier.

[72] Other deities commonly attested in personal names of members of this profession include Ninimma (in the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods)[73] and Nabu (in the first millennium BCE).

[76] In this text the process of writing down words on a tablet is described in poetic terms as comparable to making a necklace out of individual beads.

[76] According to various texts Nisaba was believed to be equipped with a lapis lazuli tablet inscribed with "heavenly writing," a term related to poetic comparisons between cuneiform signs and stars.