 Following a medieval Georgian tradition of naming churches after particular places in the Holy Land, the cathedral bears the name of Mount Zion at Jerusalem.The early medieval Georgian Chronicles credit the 5th-century Queen Sagdukht of Kartli—the Iberia of the Classical sources—with founding the church of Sioni at Samshvilde; archaeologists have not been able to locate the remains of this church.The extant fragments of the Sioni church date to the period of 759–777 as suggested by a foundational inscription, in the medieval Georgian "asomtavruli" script, from the better-preserved eastern façade, containing references to the contemporary Byzantine emperors Constantine V and Leo IV the Khazar.