[5] Franscesco Pomponio suggested the alternate translation "intelligence", relying on the association between Tashmetum and Nabu,[6] but no evidence for the term tašmētum ever being assigned such a meaning exists.
[7] A secondary Sumerian name of Tashmetum, Ningutešasiga, first appears in bilingual texts from the Middle Babylonian period, where it corresponds to her Akkadian title bēlet tešmê u salīme, "lady of listening and peace".
[16] Zachary Rubin argues they first came to be associated with each other in the eighteenth century BCE,[2] possibly due to the respective meanings of their names, with Nabu's derived from nabû, "to call", and Tashmetum's from šemû, "to hear".
[13] The oldest source attesting they were associated with each other is a copy of the Weidner god list from Tell Taban dated to the late eighteenth century BCE.
[19] Anne Löhnert argues that while the evidence is limited to sources from the first millennium BCE, they reflect an older tradition in which she was a member of the circle of this god.
[1] Zachary Rubin points out that Tashmetum does not appear in many theophoric names from Dilbat, and concludes that the connection between her and Urash might have only developed during the reign of Samsu-iluna (c. 1749–1712 BC) or later.
[29] She was already worshiped in this area in the nineteenth century BCE, as evidenced by references to her enshrinement in the cellas of Ashur and Ištar-Aššurītu and to personal devotion to her among Assyrians.
[29] Zachary Rubin notes that her absence from the Old Babylonian Nippur god list might support the assumption she was still relatively poorly known in the south in this period.
[18] In the forty first year of his reign, the king dedicated red gold and a precious stone to her,[34] possibly in hopes of warding off potential infirmity caused by his advanced age.
[18] A letter found in this city sent by the Assyrian Tarīša to her relatives includes a blessing by Ishtar and Tashmetum, which might additionally indicate that by the Old Babylonian period she came to be seen as one of the tutelary deities of Assur.
[38] In other Neo-Assyrian sources, she is often grouped with Šērūa and the poorly known goddess Kippat-māti ("circumference of the earth"), presumably because all three of them were enshrined in the temple of Ashur in Assur.
[39] Tešmit-māti, a deity attested in offering lists from the Sealand, is unlikely to be related to Tashmetum, and might be either the deified wife of the local king Gulkišar [de] or a member of the circle of Shamash.
[40] In the past, attempts have been made to prove the theophoric name Ina-ṣilli-Uridimmu attested in a text from this site should be read as Ina-ṣilli-Tašmētum based on alternate sign values, but this proposal has been abandoned by the early 2000s, and it is now assumed it reflects the worship of deified Uridimmu,[41] a mythical lion-like hybrid creature.