Scythian God, Papaios, by unknown artist
"Papaios (Ancient Greek: Παπαιος Papaios; Latin as Papaeus), whose original Scythian name is still uncertain, was the personification of Heaven, the Scythian equivalent of the Zoroastrian great God Ahura Mazdā, the consort of the Earth Goddess Api, and was therefore equated by Hērodotos of Halikarnāssos with the Greek God Zeus.
The original Scythian form of the name of Papaios is uncertain, and has variously been interpreted as meaning either "father," or "guardian," or "protector."
Papaios was the consort of Api, with the two of them being the children of Tapatī́, the primordial fire. Papaios and Api initially existed together into an inseparable unity until their union, which reflected the Indo-Iranian tradition of the marriage between Heaven and Earth as the basis for the creation of the world (and parallels the union between Ahurā Mazdā and the Earth Goddess Ārmaiti in the Avesta), gave birth to the "middle world," that is the part of the cosmos where humanity and all physical beings lived, and to the Gods of the third rank of the Scythian pantheon, who were associated with the "middle world." The completion of this process of cosmogenesis created an ordered universe made up of three zones - a cosmic one, a central one, and a chthonic one - located each above the other.
According to Ōrigenēs of Alexandreia, the Scythians considered Papaios to be a supreme God. Dārayavaʰuš I's statement in the Behistun Inscription that the Scythians did not worship Ahura Mazdā thus had no basis and this declaration of his was a political one resulting from the hostilities between the Persian Empire and the Scythians."
-taken from wikipedia
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Source:
https://mullerornis.medium.com/on-the-scythian-pantheon-44781876b6ef
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