[2] First appearing in the early 10th-century Georgian sources, Q'ueli was one of the principal fortifications of the province of Samtskhe until being conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century.

[2] The fortress of Q'ueli, now largely in ruins, lies at the village of Kolköy in the present-day district of Posof, northeastern Turkey, close to the border with Georgia.

According to this source, Q'ueli fell after a 28-day siege and the Georgian commanding officer Gobron, a devoted Christian, was put to death for having refused to convert to Islam.

[2] Q'ueli is elsewhere referred to by Constantine by its Greek equivalent of Tyrokastron and later appears in possession of David's expansionist cousin, Gurgen II of Tao.

After Gurgen's death in 941, Q'ueli passed to his cousins and, eventually, was inherited, along with other Bagratid holdings, by Bagrat III, who went on to become the first king of a unified Georgia in 1008.