Zaden

Zaden was a fertility deity of pre-Christian Georgian religion, worshipped in the kingdom of Iberia. Accounts vary as to whether his cult was part of the official pantheon established by King Pharnavaz I in the fourth century BC or added later by King Parnajom in the second century BC, but either way he was regarded as rivaling the chief god Armazi, already recorded on this atlas, in power. A statue of Zaden stood at a fortress near Mount Zedazeni, close to the old capital Mtskheta. Georgian Christian tradition holds that his statue, like those of the kingdom's other pagan gods, was destroyed through the prayers of Saint Nino, and his worship declined following Georgia's conversion to Christianity.