Ketevan the Martyr was a queen consort of Kakheti, a kingdom in eastern Georgia. She was regent of Kakheti during the minority of her son Teimuraz I of Kakheti from 1605 to 1614. She was killed at Shiraz, Iran, after prolonged tortures by the Safavid suzerains of Kakheti for refusing to give up the Christian faith and convert to Islam. She has been canonized as a saint by the Georgian Orthodox Church.
Ketevan depicted on an azulejo at the Graça Convent in Lisbon
The scene of the martyrdom of Ketevan on a panoramic azulejo.
Remains of Queen Ketevan in Goa.
Teimuraz I (1589–1663), of the Bagrationi dynasty, was a Georgian monarch (mepe) who ruled, with intermissions, as King of Kakheti from 1605 to 1648 and also of Kartli from 1625 to 1633. The eldest son of David I and Ketevan, Teimuraz spent most of his childhood at the court of Shah of Iran, where he came to be known as Tahmuras Khan. He was made king of Kakheti following a revolt against his reigning uncle, Constantine I, in 1605. From 1614 on, he waged a five-decade long struggle against the Safavid Iranian domination of Georgia in the course of which he lost several members of his family and ended up his life as the shah's prisoner at Astarabad at the age of 74.
Teimuraz I and his wife Khorashan. A sketch from the album of the contemporaneous Roman Catholic missionary Cristoforo Castelli
Shah Abbas I of Persia.
Giorgi Saakadze.
Letter to King Philip IV of Spain from Teimuraz I.
