When I started writing Laszlo the Gargoyle years ago, I thought it would be cool to add demons and angels to the story. And at first it was cool. Then I started to ask questions. How were they related? Where did they come from? Why was Astaroth also known as Astarte, Ashteroth, Ashtoreth, and Ishtar? And why did I find myself researching these problems for hours? And why did all the artwork I found on these angels and demons completely suck? Years ago, I started compiling notes and research. Finding my way into Pseudoepigraphical and Apocryphal texts.

So I started building my own reference system. Not just a list of names, but a structured way to track origin, function, and transformation. For each figure, I wanted to know where it first appeared, what role it originally served, how it changed across time, and which traditions reshaped it along the way. That process became the foundation for Codex Caelestis. 

Here is one such goddess I added just today.

Silili

Category: Minor divine figure

Culture/Tradition: Mesopotamian epic tradition (Standard Babylonian)

Era: First-millennium BCE textual witness in the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh

Obscure Mesopotamian divine name attested in Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet VI, where Silili is named as the mother of the horse in Gilgamesh’s denunciation of Ishtar.

Core Description

•  Original Form: Single-attestation divine figure in the Standard Babylonian epic tradition. 
•  Original Domain: Not securely defined by any surviving evidence beyond Tablet VI. 
•  Early Function: Appears within a rhetorical list of Ishtar’s former lovers and their fates. 
•  Later Reinterpretation: Occasionally expanded in modern summaries beyond what the text supports. 

Expanded Profile

Silili stands as a clear example of a figure who is textually attested yet minimally developed. In Tablet VI of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh rejects Ishtar and recites the damaged fates of her prior lovers. Within the horse passage, he describes relentless treatment and states that Ishtar caused the horse’s mother, Silili, to weep.

And there are over 3,000 deities in my research data, spanning from 3500BCE to the present.

This fall, I plan to release the Codex, featuring 300 curated celestial beings (like Silili) for your reading pleasure.