He is first attested in documents from Kanesh dated to the Old Assyrian period, and continues to appear in later treaties, ritual texts and theophoric names.

No references to Šanta are known from the centuries immediately following the fall of the Hittite Empire, but later Neo-Assyrian texts record theophoric names invoking which confirm he continued to be worshiped in the first millennium BCE.

[1] Most likely the logographic writing first developed in Kizzuwatna in the fourteenth and thirteenth century BCE, but the reasoning behind the choice of Marduk's name to represent Šanta remains unknown.

[22] Federico Giusfredi advises caution in interpreting the sources used to argue a connection existed between Šanta and Iyaya or Ḫandasima, as both are only attested with him once.

[2] In the so-called ritual of Zarpiya, Šanta appears alongside deities known in Hittite as Innarawanteš [de] and in Luwian as Annarumenzi, "forceful ones".

[18] It has been noted that both of the groups of minor deities who could act as Šanta's assistants can be compared to the seven helpers of the Mesopotamian god Erra (the Sebitti).

[1] However, Anatolian deities did not belong to the local pantheon, and as summarized by Gary Beckman appear only in ritual texts documenting ceremonies "performed by the natives on behalf of the gods of their imperial masters".

[31] Alfonso Archi suggests that Šanta's presence in this text is one of the pieces of evidence which might indicate that the compiler was a priest familiar with the traditions of Kizzuwatna, possibly stationed in Carchemish.

[32] While no sources mentioning Šanta are known from between the fall of the Hittite Empire and the early Neo-Assyrian period,[33] it is agreed that in contrast with many other deities known from Bronze Age Anatolia he continued to be worshiped in the first millennium BCE.

[36] Šanta was also worshiped in Lydia, and in one curse formula identified in a funerary inscription written in Lydian he appears alongside Marivda (a cognate of Marwainzi) and Kubaba.

[37] Further names invoking him have been identified in first millennium BCE and first millennium CE sources from various locations in Anatolia, with examples including Sandatis (from Corycus), Sandis (Caria), Sandon (Tarsus, Corycus, Anazarbus, Hamaxia, Olba, Seleukeia, Sivasti, Tynna), Sandazamis (Olba), Sandemias (Hamaxia); some appear as late as 524 CE, as evidenced by the example of Sandogenes from Anazarbus.

[39] In Greco-Roman sources Šanta was referred to as either Sandas (Ionic: Sandes) or Sandon, though the latter form is only attested in a number of personal names and in the writings of John the Lydian.

[39] John asserted that the name Sandas was derived from sandux, a type of garment, but it is presumed that this account does not reflect historical reality.

[24] Sandas appears on Greco-Roman coins from Tarsus, with some of the individual known examples being dated to the reigns of Antiochus VII Sidetes and Caracalla.

[48] A distinct tradition presented Sandas as a titan, as attested indirectly in the writings of Dio Chrysostom and directly later in these attributed to Stephanos of Byzantium, where "Sandes" is the offspring of heaven and earth and brother of Cronus, Rhea, Iapetus, Adanos, Olumbros and Ostasos.

[39] Cronus, Rhea and Iapetus are well attested Hesiodic titans, while the other deities listed seem to be Cilician in origin: Adanos was the mythical founder of Adana, and based on the Karatepe bilingual inscriptions where king Azitawatas (the author of the Karatepe texts) speaks of himself as a lesser chieftain of the "Danuniyim" (the exact vocalization of the name is uncertain, but these people are the same as the Denyen (Danuna) mentioned in the 14th century BC in the Amarna letters) – his overlord "Awarkus" is given as the "king of the city of Adana" in the Hittite part of the text, while on the Phoenician side of the inscriptions he is described as "king of the Danuniyim" thus identifying the two names as virtually identical.

[50] Olymbros might be related to Olybris, an epithet of Zeus, and similarly tied to a specific Cilician city (perhaps to be identified with Hittite Ellibra, referred to as Illubra in later Assyrian sources), while Ostasos remains poorly known but is presumed to have some connection to the same area.

[39] It has been proposed that the supposed theonym Santi, preserved in the London Medical Papyrus in a section written in an unknown language referred to as "Keftiu", is a form of the name Šanta.

[33] H. Craig Melchert hypothesizes that a Lycian form of Šanta, Hãta, might be preserved on the Xanathos stele, with the recurring phrase hãtahe referring to dedications made to this god.

[53] A deity named Ba’altars, "Baal of Tarsus", is indeed attested in texts from this city from the period when it was under control of Persian satraps (fourth century BCE), but the deity might have instead been a reflection of a local form of Tarḫunz, possibly to be identified with Zeus Tersios mentioned in the third century BCE by Eratosthenes.

[54] A second possibility is that the Aramaic reflection of Sandas was also attested "Nergal of Tarsus",[44] though despite similarity between the roles of these two gods in their respective pantheons this assumption is not universally accepted.

[57] A proposal that a connection existed between the name of Šanta and that of Sanerges, a deity belonging to the pantheon of the Bosporan Kingdom attested in sources from the late fourth century BCE, is not accepted by most researchers.

[34] However, it is also possible that the name Sandakos was not derived from Šanta, and that it is etymologically related to the Semitic root ṣdq, "righteous", and by extension to the theonym Sydyk.