Teimuraz I of Kakheti
Zagem was never able to recover from the blow dealt in 1616. King Teimuraz I of Kakheti was able to return to the town for a couple of times. It saw a modest revival in the 1630s and early 1640s, but then went in decline and fell under the rule of Safavid regional governors. According to Muhammad Ibrahim b. Zayn al-'Abidin Nasiri's chronicle (c. 1730), by the end of the Safavid period the governor of Zagam was the governor of the Shams al-Dinlu tribe. With the 1722 demise of the Safavid empire and the ensuing chaos at its Caucasian periphery, Zagem lost all vestiges of its past importance as a commercial outpost and faded away.